Re: Common house heating | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
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 My understanding (and again I'm a couple of years out of date) is that the experimental/statistical evidence in this case was very unclear.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.
- Re: Common house heating, (continued)
- Re: Common house heating Hungerford, David, September 29 1994
- Re: Common house heating Hungerford, David, September 29 1994
- Re: Common house heating Pablo Halpern, October 5 1994
- Re: Common house heating dghungerford, October 5 1994
- Re: Common house heating Stuart Staniford-Chen, October 5 1994
- Re: Common house heating Pablo Halpern, October 5 1994
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