Electromagnetic Field Toxicology Reporter

Evaluation and Assessment of Extremely Low Frequency EMF Bioeffects
Volume 3, Number 2, June 2001

Epidemiological Studies of Residential EMF Exposures

by Robert B. Goldberg, Ph.D., Editor

Summary

Two reports from National Cancer Institute/Children's Cancer Group investigators explore some of the criticisms leveled against mythology of the original 1997 study. One publication examined alternative exposure metrics to see if any were more strongly associated with cancer risk than the wire code and average magnetic field level metrics used in the original study. A second publication reported results of a reanalysis of the original study population to assess selection bias and contributions from potential confounding factors by comparing risk estimates obtained for those subjects who permitted a full set measurements to be made in their home with risk estimates from a larger group that also included "partial participants," subjects who declined to participate in later phases of the study. The comparison was intended to reveal if the loss of participants during the course of the study may have biased the outcome. A similar reassessment of data from the UK Childhood Cancer Study evaluated distance from powerlines as a possibly more revealing exposure metric than magnetic field levels. Another study looked at a little-considered source of EMF exposure - contact currents - as an exposure metric with a possible strong relationship to high current configuration wire code. A pooled analysis of major epidemiological studies conducted after 1993 in Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the US, and the UK concluded that recent studies still indicate a statistically significant increased risk of childhood leukemia associated with residential EMF exposure. Two epidemiologic studies of cancer risk associated with cell phone use produced negative results, but an interpretation of safety is qualified by the brief duration of use and minimal exposure of the study population. Most agents known to cause cancer require a prolonged period of exposure and an extended period of time thereafter before an effect becomes evident. A tutorial seminar presented by a UK physicist marshaled physical and biological evidence to suggest cell phone signals are potentially harmful, while several experimental studies reviewed in this quarter demonstrate a lack of serious adverse effects from cell phone exposures.

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