Posts Tagged ‘Towers.’

www.emfnews.org www.emfnews.org The sad truth is that until we have more epidemiologic evidence–whether from disease clusters like the ones at La Quinta and on Cape Cod or from long-term analyses of the health of the world’s 4-billion-and-growing cell phone users–we won’t know definitively whether electrical pollution is harming us. And even then, we are unlikely to know why or how. “In this country, our research dollars are spent on finding ways to treat disease, not on what causes it–which is to say, how we can prevent it,” says Marino. “And that’s a tragedy.” But that’s also another story. The Opposing View: “No need for regulation” In 1993, the National Institutes of health and Department of Energy began an extensive review of all studies on the possible health effects of electromagnetic fields. six years later they completed their project, called the Electric and Magnetic Fields research and public Information Dissemination (EMF RAPID) program, and reported their findings to Congress: scientific evidence of human health risk from EMF exposure is “weak,” they concluded. While acknowledging a link between both childhood and adult leukemias and emfs, the researchers’ laboratory studies with cells and animals failed to identify a mechanism– that is, how emfs might cause cancer. (read the EMF RAPID report at prevention.com/links) To longtime EMF investigators such as David Carpenter, MD, the NIH dismissal of EMF hazards was patently absurd then and even more so now …

www.emfnews.org www.emfnews.org Of course, these small studies–from Milham, Hydro-Quebec, and Havas– hardly constitute a blanket indictment of transients. “We’re still early in this part of the EMF story,” says Carpenter. Does that mean as evidence of their harm accumulates, officials will raise a red flag? Not likely, if past EMF debates are any indication. Power companies have successfully beaten back attempts to modify exposure standards, and the cell phone industry, which has funded at least 87% of the research on the subject, has effectively resisted regulation. One good reason has had to do with latency–how long it takes to develop a particular cancer, often 25 years or more. Cell phones have been around only about that long. But does that mean we avoid any discussion of their possible dangers? Again, if the past is a guide, the answer appears to be “probably.” American scientists worried about the hazards of smoking, the DES (diethylstilbestrol) pill (given to pregnant women, it caused birth defects), asbestos, pcbs (polychlorinated biphenyls)–the list is lengthy–but officially warned about exposure only after they could say with absolute certainty that these things were harmful. As for protecting ourselves from toxic radiation, we have a lax–and laughable–history. In the 1920s, just a few years after medical imaging devices were invented, physicians were known to entertain their guests by x-raying them at garden parties. In the 1930s, scientists often kept …