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Electromagnetic Fields and Health
| Article
# : |
20441 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1992 |
2,844 Words |
| Author
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B. Samuel Tanenbaum and Anne Macdonald
B. Samuel Tanenbaum, professor of engineering with a Ph.D. in
physics, serves as dean of faculty at Harvey Mudd College. He
is currently investigating methods for shielding and reducing
magnetic fields from distribution and transmission lines.
Anne Macdonald is editor of the Harvey Mudd College Bulletin
and free-lance writer. |
Ever since Edison discovered how to illuminate a room without wick, gas or oil, Americans have developed an enormous appetite for electricity. Over the years, as the market for labor saving devices and gadgets for improving the quality of life increased both at work and at home, so did the demand for electric power. For everything from mainframe computers to heating and lighting systems, air conditioners, blenders, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, and even pencil sharpeners, electricity became the preferred energy source. The twentieth century ripened into the age of electricity.
The in 1979, 100 years after Edison's discovery, two scientists raised an almost heretical question; is electricity safe?
In their paper "Electrical Wiring Configurations and Childhood Cancer", which appeared in the American journal of Epidemiology, psychologist Nancy Wertheimer and physicist Ed. Leeper reported that children with cancer were twice as likely as those in control groups to live in homes near high-current electric wire. They suggested that low-level magnetic fields produced by the currents at 60 Hz (the standard U.S. transmission frequency) might promote some forms of cancer.
The small group of epidemiologists aware of this early work treated it with skepticism. After all, the magnetic field levels that Wertheimer and Leeper labeled as possibly dangerous measured only 2.5 mlli Gauss (mG). Almost every household appliance produces substantially larger fields for example, a digital clock radio might produce a reading of 20 mG, and a television set 100 mG, which would mean that every American was exposed to potentially dangerous levels on a daily basis. To add to the skepticism, at that time the explosive growth in electric usage had not been matched with a sharp increase in the incidence of a cancer.
Now, 12 years and some 200 studies later; the scientific community and the general public are voicing concern over a possible link between exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and cancer. The majority of epidemiological studies have shown an increased risk of cancer with exposure to 60 Hz magnetic fields and some studies report changes at the cellular level at very narrow low-frequency ranges. Animal studies have claimed magnetic fields adversely affect chicken embryos; another found a slowing of repetitive learning by rats exposed to magnetic fields before birth. Though studies such as these have shown startling results, the matter remains
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