Re: Common house heating
From: Stuart Staniford-Chen (staniforcs.ucdavis.edu)
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 94 12:36 CDT
Pablo talks about the possible health effects of electromagnetic fields.  
I just wanted to point out that the health problems are a lot more 
controversial than he suggests.  It's not a case of Power Utilities vs the 
rest of the world.  Many scientists have dismissed the putative problems 
as ludicrous.  The reason for this is that the fields in question are of 
too low a frequency to have any effect on chemistry (ie no molecule could 
be split because of them, nor could any chemical reactions in the body be 
affected).  This is in contrast to, say, X-rays which are of much higher 
frequency and can and do split molecules.

Since most (all?) of the known mechanisms for cancer involve broken bits 
of molecules (free radicals) damaging DNA, the inability of 60Hz fields to 
affect chemistry makes it a priori implausible that they could cause 
cancer.  Indeed, when I last read much about this issue (a couple of years 
ago), nobody had proposed any scientifically plausible mechanism by which 
it could happen.

Of course, the absence of any known mechanism does not prove something 
does not happen - it may rather be a comment on the limited knowledge of 
current science.  But it does mean that there needs to be a fairly 
compelling experimental case for something before it is worth worrying 
about.  My understanding (and again I'm a couple of years out of date) is 
that the experimental/statistical evidence in this case was very unclear.  
Some experimenters have seen strong effects and others have seen nothing 
but noise.

It is true that many companies have begun marketing devices that emit less 
electomagnetic radiation.  However, companies have to respond, not just to 
whether the fields actually cause harm, but to whether the public thinks 
they might (specifically the public in the form of juries and 
legislators).  People have consistently shown extreme averseness to 
anything that might cause cancer (almost without regard to the strength of 
the evidence or how high the risk is compared to other risks they assume 
daily).

Incidentally, if anyone can point me to a recent review of the scientific 
debate on this issue I'd be grateful.

Stuart Staniford-Chen
stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu
N-St Cohousing.

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