From: btbg1194@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bradley T Banko)
Subject: Re: High voltage transmision lines and human health
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 23:42:32 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.112901.248@mis.mcw.edu> jmoulder@mis.mcw.edu writes:
>btbg1194@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bradley T Banko) writes:
>>>
...
>4) Biological plausibility: The plausibility of deriving a cause-effect
>relationship from an epidemiological correlation is enhanced when results
>of experimental animal and cell studies support the epidemiology.
>So far, ELF fields have not been shown to be carcinogenic in animals or
>genotoxic in cells.   
>
>>>3) From a review of epidemiological studies of human exposures to power
>>>frequency EMFs I conclude that one can *speculate* that these fields might in
>>>some way *influence* cancer risks.
>> 
>> On the other hand, a paper by that "baseball" physicist at Yale looked at
>>                                               (Robert Adair)
>> the matter in somewhat theoretical terms, and concluded that there should
>> essentially be no effect from ELF fields (resonance absorption on a cellular
>> level), if I remember right.

(I don't mean to minimize Adair's work by referring to him as the "baseball"
physicist, but that is an interesting hobby of his.  He actually works in
high energy physics, I think.)

>
>Yes, Adair (Phys Rev A 43:1039-1048, 1991.) argues that biological effects 
>of weak ELF effects at the cellular level, if they exist, must have 
>explanations outside the scope of conventional physics.  
>
>I'm not very comfortable with this argument.  
>I recall a paper from college biology in which an engineer demonstrated that 
>hovering of humming birds was an optical elusion, as hovering was "impossible".
> 
>I also recall a paper from the early 1950's that demonstrated that ionizing
>radiation could not kill cells because the amount of kinetic energy delivered 
>paper exists, if anyone can verify a reference, I would appreciate it].

That is a perfectly understandable line of reasoning in this context which
doesn't take into account the amplification mechanism for the DNA damage that
mutations can cause.  Adair's article was trying to avoid the possibility that
ELF fields could deposit energy which could couple to this DNA mutation
amplification chain, and I thought that he made a good case for it.  This
assumes that there are not any other ways for the energy to couple in...
so that it would produce only general thermal heating in tissues in the worst
case.  That makes a lot of sense in the face of what we do understand 
about the molecular biology and biochemistry of the human body.

>
>In this context, see Jackson (Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 89:3508-3510, 1992) who 
>argues that the lack of a historic correlation between electrical power
>generation and the incidence of cancer eliminates the possibility that 
>power-frequency fields are a significant cause of cancer.

I never can seem to discuss this for very long without flip-flopping.
The weight of the evidence and reasoning seem to be well on the side of
there being no effect.

>
>John Moulder (jmoulder@mis.mcw.edu)
>Radiation Biology
>Medical College of Wisconsin
>Milwaukee, WI   414-266-4672

Brad Banko

-- 
Brad Banko;  Dept of Physics;  U of Illinois;  b-banko@uiuc.edu, KB8CNE
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