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A GOVERNMENT agency has acknowledged for the first time that people can suffer nausea, headaches and muscle pains when exposed to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones, electricity pylons and computer screens.

The condition known as electrosensitivity, a heightened reaction to electrical energy, will be recognised as a physical impairment.

A report by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to be published next month, will state that increasing numbers of British people are suffering from the syndrome. While the total figure is not known, thousands are believed to be affected to some extent.

The report, by the agency’s radiation protection division, is expected to say that GPs do not know how to treat sufferers and that more research is needed to find cures. It will give a full list of the symptoms, which can include dizziness, irregular heartbeat and loss of memory.

Although most European countries do not recognise the condition, Britain will follow Sweden where electrosensitivity was recognised as a physical impairment in 2000. About 300,000 Swedish men and women are sufferers.

The acknowledgment may fuel legal action by sufferers who claim mobile phone masts have made them ill.

In January Sir William Stewart, chairman of the HPA and the government’s adviser on mobile phones, warned that a small proportion of the population could be harmed by exposure to electromagnetic fields, and called for careful examination of the problem.

The HPA has now reviewed all scientific literature on electrosensitivity and concluded that it is a real syndrome. The condition had previously been dismissed as psychological.

The findings should lead to better treatment for sufferers. In Sweden people who are allergic to electrical energy receive government support to reduce exposure in their homes and workplaces.

Special cables are installed in sufferers’ homes while electric cookers are replaced with gas stoves. Walls, roofs, floors and windows can be covered with a thin aluminium foil to keep out the electromagnetic field - the area of energy that occurs round any electrically conductive item.

British campaigners believe electrical devices in the home and the workplace, as well as mobile phones emitting microwave radiation, have created an environmental trigger for the syndrome.

There is particular concern about exposure to emissions from mobile phone masts or base stations, often located near schools or hospitals.

In January Stewart also called for a national review of planning rules for masts. The review was launched by the government in April.

British sufferers report feeling they are being “zapped” by electromagnetic fields from appliances and go out of their way to avoid them.

Some have moved to remote areas where electromagnetic pollution is lower.

The HPA report is eagerly awaited by campaigners. Alasdair Philips, director of the campaign group Powerwatch, said: “This will help the increasing number of people who tell us their GPs do not know how to treat them.”

Rod Read, chairman of ElectrosensitivityUK, added: “This will be the beginning of an awareness of a new form of pollution from electrical energy.”

Exposure to high levels of Electromagnetic Radiation is responsible for a condition known as Electrosensitivity (ES) or Electrohypersensitivity (EHS). Research shows that between 3% and 5% of the general population could be ES sufferers, and that they are affected to the extent that that their lifestyle has to be in some ways modified, sometimes quite dramatically. In Sweden, for example 285,000 people (over 3% of the population) are registered as ES and claim disability benefit from the government. Unfortunately, the people who have minor effects may well go on to become more seriously affected by exposure to electrical or microwave environs, if they do nothing to improve their electromagnetic environment.

Electrical Sensitivity is a modern illness that is little understood, except by the people who suffer from it, and in many cases they may not even be aware of the cause of them, or even have heard of the illness. The medical profession on the whole do not recognise ES (like ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, was not recognised as a medical condition when it was first reported).

In ES sufferers, eyes and skin react in a multitude of ways, they get headaches of all degrees of severity, sleep disturbances (especially near mobile phone masts), heart problems, joint aches, tiredness, digestive and breathing difficulties, cognitive and behavioural disturbances. There is reason to believe that this escalation in ill-health is continuing as the environment is getting increasingly polluted by the wireless radiation from new developments in mobile telecommunications technology and a ‘bluetooth’ world where our electrical appliances talk to each other using microwaves.

Recently scientists consider people’s health to be more at risk from the ever increasing wireless microwave radiation. They suggest it is the digital pulsing ‘chatter’ of the digital communications world that can upset cell structure. It is not necessarily true that absorbing radio waves is bad for you. Most people absorb radio waves a lot of the time, perhaps all of the time. What is significant is the amount of energy we are all being exposed to today, compared with just 15 or 20 years ago. The magnitude of growth in the presence of radio waves is colossal, thousands of times greater. It is the totality of the electrosmog environment that concerns scientists. They don’t know what the gross exposure will do to the human body. “We are all living within the world’s biggest scientific experiment.”

Electromagnetic fields are finally being acknowledged as a potential biological hazard by the World Health Organization. The WHO have started an International EMF Project to perform research into the dangers of these EMF. The project’s aim is to study the potential health effects of a variety of EMF on humans as all humans are exposed to EMF no matter their location, it is just the severity that alters Therefore any affect on health, no matter how minimal, would have a major impact on public health and safety and EMF protection measure would have to be put into place.

Radio fields (RFs) are utilized in many ways to provide valuable and beneficial services, but as the usage of the cell phone has increased, so have the problems associated with RF exposure that is within close range, notably from the aerial of a cell phone. As technologies develop and are used more extensively we are faced with an increasing exposure to EMF and therefore we require EMF protection devices. All health effects must be thoroughly examined and the risks assessed due to the fact that there are an ever increasing number of magnetic medical devices being used and the possibility of a transportation system that will utilize a strong magnetic field.

The International EMF project was formulated in 1996 to examine all evidence of potential health impacts arising from exposure to EMF radiation within the frequency range of 0 to 300 GHz. Knowledge gaps being removed is a primary objective of the project and researchers are encouraged to do this with the backing of the WHO.

Some of the objectives of the project are as follows. The project intends to offer an informed, synchronized answer to global queries about the potential adverse effects on health due to EMF exposure. The project also aims to provide a report on potential adverse effects after studying and compiling the available knowledge. One of the tasks is also to decide where more investigation is needed in order to close current gaps in knowledge in order to ensure that dangers to health will be more accurately analyzed in future.

The project also aims to work in co-operation with funding agencies to ensure that an agenda is set for more focused studies to be made and more relevant information to be collected. All study results and additional information collected is to be integrated into the WHO’s Environmental Health Criteria monographs. Once the information is integrated it will be utilized to officially determine health hazards of exposure to EMF. They will also study currently available EMF protection devices

The aim of the WHO is also to assist the progress of the creation of globally satisfactory values in terms of levels of exposure to EMF radiation. Another part of their goals is to make available information in order to ensure that projects that are involved on behalf of local and nationwide authorities have their progress monitored and provide help to those who need it. This would include documents submitted on the subjects of EMF management as well the communication and risk perception aspects of EMF projects. In addition the project needs to provide any parties that request it with recommendations on the potential risks and adverse effects as a result of exposure to EMF as well as any measures to help improve the situation that they are consulted about.

This project will help to fill many gaps in current scientific knowledge by encouraging the appropriate groups to perform the necessary testing and thereby provide us with the answers we need to base our future decisions on. This project will for the basis of knowledge about this aspect of health and help guide our policies in a better informed direction. Analysis will also be done of EMF protection information and EMF protectors currently available to consumers.

Occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields can lead to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, report USC researchers in a new study of more than 300 Southern California patients.

Eugene Sobel, professor of preventive medicine and neurology, and his colleagues examined the incidence of moderate to high occupational electromagnetic force (EMF) exposure among Alzheimer’s disease patients and controls. The most common highly exposed occupation was sewing machine operators, who are exposed to strong, continuous EMFs over long time periods.

Sobel’s group studied patients from the Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment and Diagnostic Center at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center in Downey. The researchers compared occupational history data from Alzheimer’s patients with information from a group of control subjects who had been diagnosed with some other kind of cognitive impairment or dementia.

The work is published in the December issue of the journal Neurology.

Epidemiological analysis of the patients’ “primary” occupation showed that individuals who had likely been exposed to electromagnetic fields in their occupation-such as seamstresses-had nearly four times the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than individuals who had little or no occupational EMF exposure.

“Seamstresses seem to be among the individuals with the highest occupational EMF exposure,” said Sobel. “They sit near motors of sewing machines for hours, and most industrial sewing machines are always on, and always produce magnetic fields.”

That’s quite a difference, he said, from casual use of a sewing machine at home. But new computerized home sewing machines he noted, have a rectifier, which continuously produces a strong magnetic field, even when the needle is not operating.

In some cases, Sobel said, relatively minor design changes to some equipment, particularly sewing machines, might mean a significant decrease in magnetic field exposure. “The rectifiers in computerized home sewing machines could be taken out of the machine casing, put on a cord and positioned away from the operator,” he explained. And in industrial machines, motors could be shielded with a special metal that redirects the field.

Sobel emphasized that the EMF-Alzheimer’s association was found for magnetic fields generated from “electrical and motorized equipment located very close to the body, not necessarily the head.” Electromagnetic fields from sources like high-power electrical lines tend to expose individuals to much weaker fields than those produced by industrial sewing machines or similar equipment.

In a second paper in the same journal, Sobel and Zoreh Davanipour, Ph.D., D.V.M., describe a hypothesis linking the development of Alzheimer’s disease to EMF exposure.

Increased exposure could change the balance of calcium in some cells in the body, the researchers speculate, thus causing increased production of a protein called amyloid-b. The protein is secreted from cells into the bloodstream. Other research indicates that amyloid-b may aggregate within the brain, and previous research has shown that such buildup of amyloid-b is associated with the processes that accompany Alzheimer’s.

“There now needs to be some testing to learn whether exposure to electromagnetic fields causes any change of amyloid-b levels in the blood,” said Sobel of the hypothesis that has the potential to close some of the experimental distance between epidemiologists and biochemists.

“Elevated Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease among Workers with Likely Electromagnetic Field Exposure,” by E. Sobel, M. Dunn, Z. Davanipour, Z. Qian and H.C. Chui, and “Electromagnetic Field Exposure May Cause Increased Production of Amyloid Beta and Eventually Lead to Alzheimer’s Disease” by Eugene Sobel and Zoreh Davanipour, both appear in the December issue of Neurology.

It was sort of a funny story when we first heard about it a few years ago: A dairy farmer living in Wisconsin near high voltage utility company transmission lines couldn’t turn out the lights in his barn. Even with the switches in the off position, night after night after he had finished his chores, he’d go back out to the barn to find the light bulbs still glowing from the electrical charge hovering in the air. The cows were none too happy about it either, because the constant light prevented them from sleeping, and they gave less milk.

But the story doesn’t seem so funny any more — not after the spate of recent reports of children developing deadly illnesses or adults dying prematurely of rare diseases — all apparently because they had the misfortune of living near high amounts of electrical current.

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that invisible electromagnetic fields (EMFs) — created by everything from high-voltage utility company lines to personal computers, microwave ovens, TVs and even electric blankets — are linked to a frightening array of cancers and other serious health problems in children and adults.

Though it received scant attention from the mainstream press, a report leaked last October from the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection said there is a powerful body of impressive evidence showing that even very low exposure to electromagnetic radiation has long-term effects on health.

The report cited studies that show EMFs can disturb the production of the hormone melatonin, which is linked with sleep patterns. It said there was strong evidence that children exposed to EMFs had a higher risk of leukemia.

This follows on the heels of three epidemiological reports released in 1994. One indicated a tie between occupational exposure to EMFs and Alzheimer’ s disease. Another suggested a link with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The third study indicated a tie with Amyotrophic lateralsclerosis.

Now a surprising new report released in February by physicists at Britain’s University of Bristol shows that power lines attract particles of radon — a colorless, odorless gas irrefutably linked with cancer.

What’s this all about? And why have the media failed to report with the appropriate emphasis the implications of these significant health risks?

Shortly after her son Kevin was diagnosed with leukemia, Julie Larm of Omaha, NE. began to notice other children at the local pool who had lost their hair or had surgical scars. As her suspicion rose, she began talking to other parents. One person she contacted was Dee Hendricks, whose son was also undergoing cancer treatment. Together they collected the names of eleven children in the area who had cancer.

When they plotted them on a map they were surprised to see that all lived within one mile of each other and an electric power substation.

“If there was nothing to worry about, why does our utility have an EMF committee…which was in effect long before we came and started making noise ?” asks Larm, a member of the Omaha Parents for the Prevention of Cancer. “Why do they need such things if theres nothing to it?”

The group’s efforts have been buttressed by Paul Brodeur, a campaigning environmental journalist who had in his day taken on asbestos and chlorofluorocarbons and is the author of two books on the subject of EMFs. Brodeur is convinced that EMFs are one of the greatest environmental threats facing the nation.

“Never before has there been this much epidemiological evidence of the carcinogenicity of any agent,” says Brodeur, “and that agent declared to be benign.”

Robert Becker, M.D., author of Cross Currents (Tarcher, 1990), who has studied this subject since the 1960s warns, “EMFs could turn out to be a far worse environmental disaster, affecting far more people, than toxic waste, radiation or asbestos.”

To some, especially the families of people with unexplained cancers, the sheer volume of research that has been carried out on this issue suggests there must be a cancer connection and perhaps a cover-up. Their suspicion is heightened by the fact that many of the studies are funded by the utility industry, which would be directly affected by the studies’ outcomes.

At the heart of the matter is a relatively simple and well-understood physical phenomenon: When an electric current passes through a wire, it generates an electromagnetic field that exerts forces on surrounding objects. Electric fields arise from the strength of an electric charge; magnetic fields, from the charge’s motion.

Unlike ionizing radiations such as x-rays — which pack sufficient wallop to knock electrons out of the molecules that make up the human body — EMFs do not produce charged particles, so experts always believed they posed no danger. Therefore, the Federal government has never regulated EMFs, and the electric industry was allowed to set its own standards.

But other recent experimental studies have shown that even weak magnetic fields can change the chemistry of the brain, impair the immune system, and inhibit the synthesis of melatonin, a hormone known to suppress several types of tumors and to be present in reduced amounts in men as well as women who develop breast cancer.

Some lab tests have confirmed that EMFs affect living cells in a variety of ways, most of them harmful. (Scientists are intrigued, however, by their ability to speed slow-healing fractures, enhancing bone formation).

What’s confusing is that the studies have produced widely divergent and often contradictory results. On the one hand, many scientists are convinced the study of electromagnetic fields is a massive waste of time and money — costing an estimated one billion dollars a year. After years of extensive study, Dr. Garry Boorman says, “We’re not sure what part of the field, if any, is toxic or important, or could be hazardous to your health.”

As a PBS “Frontline” documentary reported, scientists have been unable to locate a mechanism by which electromagnetic fields would trigger a biological reaction. The energy in the fields to which most of us are exposed is tiny tens of millions of times too small to break the molecules in cells. All living organisms evolved in the presence of the earths magnetic field, which is two hundred times larger.

Dozens of animal experiments have been carried out in which rats and mice are exposed to very large magnetic fields for long periods — some for their entire lives — but no animal has ever been proven to contract cancer due to this exposure. Generations of rodents raised in the presence of high magnetic fields do not show any increased evidence of birth defects or depressed immune systems.

With no animal data to support the claim and no physical mechanism to explain how it might affect the body, the main support for a connection has come from epidemiology.

As for clusters like the ones which motivated Julie Larm and her group in Omaha, many scientists are skeptical about their significance, if any, to the debate about EMFs. Because conditions like cancer are surprisingly common about one-third of the population gets cancer in their lifetimes random clusters of the disease are not unusual and are found close to and far from power lines.

Still, because of our reliance on electricity and the potential financial consequences for utilities and other companies, the regulation of EMFs is a politically sensitive issue. There is evidence to establish that the Bush administration tried to suppress findings of a study by the Environmental Protection Agency linking electromagnetic fields to certain health problems. The Clinton White House, meanwhile, has been largely silent on the issue.

Cover-Up?

Lending credence to claims that there is, indeed, a public health risk from EMFs and that the government knows about it is that an EPA report a few years ago raised suspicions of a causal link between electromagnetic fields and leukemia, brain tumors, breast and prostrate cancer, even birth defects.

Less-publicized but still significant are some of the foreign studies. Last July, Canadian researchers told the Lancet medical journal they had found a high rate of leukemia among children whose mothers had worked at sewing machines while pregnant.

Checks showed the operators were exposed to more electromagnetic radiation than people who work on power lines or in power stations.
In another study, Swedish researchers assessed the long-term exposure of people living near high-voltage transmission lines by taking spot measurements of the field strength in each home, and using them to confirm the accuracy of a computer model that calculated the strength of the fields emitted by each of the lines, according to distance from the lines, the wiring configurations, and the current level the lines were known to be carrying.

Then they programmed a computer with records of past current loads that had been maintained over the previous 20 years for each of the transmission lines. They were thus able to pinpoint with great accuracy EMF exposure for each cancer victim. What they found was a clear dose-response relationship between exposure to even weak power-frequency electromagnetic fields and the development of cancer, especially acute and chronic myeloid leukemia.

A second Swedish study, which also employed cases and controls, was conducted by epidemiologists. It confirmed that average magnetic field exposure over time was the critical factor in the development of disease. Interestingly, these studies were funded in part by the Swedish utility industry.

Maria Feychting of Swedens Karolinska Institute looked at 127,000 children who lived near big power lines for over 25 years and found twice the risk of leukemia.

“In our study we found about a two-fold increase in the risk if the children were living close, within 50 meters (yards) of a big power line,” she told Britain’s Channel Four television.

The new study by the University of Bristol showing that power lines can attract cancer-causing gases like radon has heightened concerns.

Even scientists who have failed to find a reason for the apparent link refuse to say it is safe to live near a high-voltage power line.

Warning to Parents

Of critical importance to all parents is that some studies have suggested that children exposed to magnetic fields of between two and three milligauss or above experienced a significantly increased risk of developing cancer. Since ambient levels of two to three milligauss can routinely be measured in buildings within 50 to 150 feet of wires carrying strong electric current, these findings are especially troublesome.

The report leaked last October by the mellitus National Council on Radiation Protection recommended a safety limit of 0.2 microteslas, a very weak field compared to those generated by household appliances. A person standing one foot away from a vacuum cleaner or electric drill can be exposed to anywhere between two and 20 microteslas.

There is no way to block EMFs (they even penetrate lead shielding), and the only protection is distance from the source.

In our electronic age, its almost impossible to eliminate exposure to the myriad of electrical sources with which we come in contact on a daily basis.

Thousands of electric company substations are scattered throughout our cities large and small and they abut homes, apartments and office buildings — even schools. Since few of the high-voltage lines that lead into and out of these substations have been buried to prevent harmful emissions, magnetic fields of potent strength can be found virtually everywhere.

Concerns have also been raised about magnetic fields given off by faulty household wiring, by high-current conductors concealed in the walls, ceilings and floors of commercial office buildings and other large structures; and by high-voltage transformers that can be found in almost any large building.

The EPA Raises Questions

Concerns about so-called non-ionizing radiation began to mount in 1979, when a study of cancer rates among Colorado school children determined that those who lived near power lines had two or three times as much chance to develop cancer. The link seemed so improbable that power companies eagerly paid to have the study replicated. To their surprise, the subsequent scientific inquiry supported the original findings, which have since been buttressed by a variety of additional studies and reports of increased cancer rates among workers employed in the electric industry.

One such study, conducted by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. confirmed that telephone linemen, electricians and electric-power workmen are developing breast cancer at six times the expected rate.

But it was the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific review that has had an explosive impact, lending the most credence to those who have been warning of EMF health hazards.

The report — a 367-page document entitled “Evaluation of the Potential Carcinogenicity of Electromagnetic Fields” — came to light in 1990, when someone in the agency leaked a draft version of it to Louis Slesin, editor of an influential newsletter called Microwave News.

Chief among the conclusions was one specifying that power line electromagnetic fields should be classified as a “probable human carcinogen.” William Farland, then-director of the EPA’s Office of Health and Environmental Assessment ordered this conclusion deleted from the report.

Then the Associated Press reported that the Bush administration tried to delay release of the EPA’s findings. Robert E. McGaughy, the project manager and chief author of the report, was quoted as saying that the White House “was concerned not about the accuracy of the report…[but] about how people would react to the news and how it would affect the electric power industry.”

Ultimately, after two major TV networks and newspapers throughout the country exposed the Bush administration’s efforts at censorship, the report was released. It contained a disclaimer that asserted “the controversial and uncertain nature of the scientific findings of this report” and declared that it should not be construed as “representing Agency policy or position.”

The Medical Connection

Just how EMFs affect humans is still not entirely known.

In the case of cancer, most specialists theorize that a malignant tumor forms in at least two stages. In the first, referred to as “initiation,” an outside agent damages the cell’s genetic material. Because EMFs are not strong enough to break molecular and chemical bonds, scientists are concentrating on the second stage of cancer, a series of steps called “promotion.” Researchers are tying to pinpoint ways in which EMFs might cause cells to grow and multiply abnormally.

Some studies suggest that EMFs may promote cancer by interfering with the transmission of calcium across the cell membrane, a flow that governs such processes as muscle contraction, egg fertilization, cell division, and growth. EMFs may also disturb a cell’s ability to process hormone, enzyme, and other biological signals that regulate normal growth.

EMFs are known to affect nerve impulses. Melatonin, a regulatory hormone secreted by the pineal gland near the brain, ordinarily stimulates immune responses and may suppress tumor growth. Reduced melatonin production has been linked to breast and prostate cancer. Melatonin secretion in turn is controlled by norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Receptors for its relative, the hormone epinephrine, are disturbed by EMFs.

Some doctors stated that their observations led them to believe that it was possible that magnetic fields stimulate the rate of cancer cell growth, or act as a cancer promoter.

A San Antonio researcher discovered human cancer cells exposed to 60 Hz fields (the frequency of a high-voltage line) grew as much as 24 times as fast as unexposed cells and showed greatly increased resistance to destruction by the cells of the body’s defense system.

Female breast cancer has reached epidemic proportions, with one in ten American women developing it and one in four dying. Alarmingly, of women who develop the disease, 55% have no known risk factors. Breast cancer mortality rates are five times lower in Asia and Africa than in industrialized North America and northern Europe regions where EMFs are omnipresent.

Electric Companies On the Spot

A contention of the electric utility industry in the United States had been that the pathologies referred to in most of the studies might actually have been induced by exposure to pesticides, chemicals or other toxic agents in the environment.

For a time they contended that if power-line magnetic fields really did cause cancer, the fivefold increase in electrical usage during the past 30 years would have been expected to have produced an epidemic of childhood leukemia. The utility industry stopped making this statement in June of 1991, after the National Cancer Institute disclosed that a study it had made showed that in recent years there had been unexplained increases of nearly 11% in childhood leukemia, and of more than 30% in childhood brain cancer.

A study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reported a steep increase in brain-cancer rates over the past dozen years among the general population.

People working with computer monitors are developing primary brain tumors at nearly five times the expected rate.

Still, as Dr. Becker observes, “Companies wont admit that EMFs are risky, because they will become liable. And the government wont, because it is the largest user of the electromagnetic spectrum, especially for military communications. Our whole economy depends on them now.”

Not surprisingly, as people begin to focus on the problem of EMFs, property values near power lines and electric substations have been plummeting, and numerous lawsuits have been filed.

Have you thought seriously about the threat to our health posed by electromagnetic radiation, through equipment used at work, frequent use of cell phones or cordless phones, microwaves, many household appliances or overhead transmission lines? Do you think that it is too complicated and that it is best to leave it to the experts?

In an interview with Dr Neil Cherry about his work in this area he discussed some of his research and the evidence for his concern, and challenged us and our local bodies to take responsibility for our health and reduce the threats coming from electromagnetic radiation.

Being informed - a source of empowerment
Empowering people - that is the most important driving force for Neil’s energies at the moment. That is the integrating point behind what he is doing - sharing information, hopefully in ways that people understand it.

In his many roles, as a university lecturer, as a Regional Councillor, as a public speaker, and a media commentator. he is working to disseminate information power. There are so many vital issues that are complex, and people are being disempowered by being told, “This is too complicated. Trust us. We know what we are doing.”

As one of the people who is now an elected politician and who knows about the parliamentary system, Neil’s analysis is that in many ways those making decisions often don’t know what they are doing. They are people just like us. They have been given opportunities like anybody who has been elected, and it is their duty to use those opportunities with care and responsibility for the people who have put their faith and trust in them.

Neil’s expertise is something that has been built up year by year and integrated with the knowledge that has been acquired in the past. The knowledge is modified by the most extensive reading before Neil makes a public statement.

Electromagnetic radiation a threat to our health
Electromagnetic radiation is the big issue he is involved in at the moment?radio waves from radio and TV towers, microwaves from cell phones, cell sites, mobile phones, cordless phones, and microwave ovens (the last being a minor problem compared with the others). The background radiation has been rising significantly by factors of thousands in the general population since the Second World War. Cancer is partly genetic, but largely environmental. Our food, the toxins in the environment like air pollutants, benzine, toxins in food like saccharine, are shown to be potential carcinogens, all those PCVs and other fairly toxic chemicals, can damage cells, but evidence is very strong that electromagnetic radiation damages cells in a way that is potentially cancer causing.

The official position of those who make their money out of producing and using this technology is that we all know that the only thing that electro magnetic radiation can do is heat and if it doesn’t heat it can’t have any effect.

However, a different view comes from science from reading the people who have researched what happens to cells in laboratories in repeatable experiments. For example, a laboratory took human breast cancer cells, and exposed them to an infusion of melatonin, which is a natural neurohormone which we all have, which helps us sleep at night. Then they applied a very low level of varying electric field, 50 cycles field, and the oncostatic effect of melatonin was totally eliminated.

Every night when we go to sleep our melatonin levels rise and melatonin goes through our blood and cleans our cells up. For example, it scavenges out free radicals which are highly damaging chemicals. If the free radicals persist for very long they damage DNA and cause damaged cells and are shown to be carcinogenic. Melatonin is one of those agents that cleans us up every night to reduce the possibility that cells will become carcinogenic.

That experiment shows that electromagnetic radiation from power lines and appliances can reduce the melatonin cleaning-up effect on human breast cancer cells. The experiment was repeated in three other laboratories. It gave a very reliable and repeatable result. The strength of the signal they used was two to twelve milligauss - a very low level magnetic field magnitude in that wave.

The European standard for safety for ELF fields is “20,000 milligauss is safe”, whereas this experiment shows that 2 milligauss causes a significant reduction in the cleansing effect of melatonin on cancer cells.

Is there any other evidence that people who work with ELFs get breast cancer?
There are several papers in epidemiology which show that people who work with ELF fields get more breast cancer. The first paper that Neil read showed that there is a statistically significant increase in breast cancer among these people but there was no known mechanism, so it was not regarded as a significant result. This was breast cancer in men. This was a surprising result. Breast cancer in women working in the electrical industry was the subject of the next paper which gave similar findings.

Neil put together the cell work and the epidemiology, finding a mechanism and a result, so it cannot now be said that we do not know how it happens. Such findings were supported by other tests.

What has been the international reaction?
Instead of these theories being accepted, big international studies have been conducted to disprove the connection. It is impossible to identify a particular given cause in each case. Research needs to be conducted over a large section of the population.

Those who work in the electrical industry are at risk, as the ELFs act as co-carcinogens preventing the repair mechanisms from working. Not only may cancer result, but also people may suffer from depressed immune systems.

People living in the U.S. embassy in Moscow were concerned that radar was being aimed at the top floor of the building. Tests showed that there were changes in the blood and an increase in cancer among those who lived there, including the children.

Air traffic controllers who were exposed to radar were tested and were found to have broken chromosomes. When they were taken away from the exposure the repair began, but the recovery rate was very slow.

Physiotherapists operating microwave equipment were the subject of research in 1993. In this group there was an increase of 50 - 60% in miscarriage rate, of which 48% occurred in the first seven weeks, yet they were exposed to the microwaves for a very brief time - at most two minutes per treatment.

Eighteen months later Australian Telecom responded saying that microwaves have difficulty penetrating the foetus, though short waves can. If it is not heat that causes the problem then the reason could well be that free radicals are damaging the DNA which causes damage to the chromosomes because of reduced melatonin. This could result in a deformed foetus which then aborts.

No records have been kept of the number of miscarriages in the general population, which means that there are no past statistics for comparison.

There have been problems among physiotherapists in Sweden and Denmark where there have been an increasing number of still births, cot deaths, deformity of children, and perinatal problems.

Cell phones are another cause of problems.
When the cell phone signal is held next to the brain there are changes in the brainwaves in 70% of people. This test was done at a level of about 2 microwatts per sq. cm., which is only a fraction of the actual exposure experienced from the cell phone. It is the level which is experienced at a cell phone site. In this, as in most aspects, people are not all the same. Some are more electro-sensitive. People who sleep with a cell phone by the bed have poor REM sleep, leading to impaired learning and memory. This is related to melatonin reduction.

In research at the University of Washington rats’ brains were exposed to a microwave signal and showed breaks in the DNA associated with increased free radicals and increased cell deaths - at levels of exposure about what a cell phone produces next to people’s heads. People are now suing cell phone companies because of brain tumours caused by high use.

In spite of this research one “world expert” in electromagnetic radiation and health has said that the worst thing about a cell phone is that it can cause an interruption during dinner in a restaurant.

What research in epidemiology suggests that the work on rats might have an applicability to people? The cells in rats’ brains are very similar to human brain cells.

The National Cancer Institute in the U.S. did a study of people in industries that exposed their workers to microwaves. They found that in seven industries in the Eastern U.S. there has been a tenfold increase in brain tumours among employees who have worked there for twenty years. The main cause appears to be electromagnetic radiation. Other possible causes have been checked, such as solder fumes which could have doubled the rate but not resulted in a tenfold increase.