Baffling EMF Reports
According to the unofficial NCRP report, new day-care centers, schools, playgrounds, houses, and other structures should not be built in areas where ambient or "background" EMFs exceed the two-milligauss (mG) level. Furthermore, the report says, ambient EMFs near existing structures should be reduced to the 2-mG level, or at least "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA), within the next 10 years. "Though not unanimous, the predominant view of the committee is to recommend the ALARA approach," the draft report states, adding that research findings "are sufficiently consistent . . . to suggest plausible connections between [extremely low-frequency] EMF exposures and disruption of normal biological processes, in ways meriting detailed examination of potential implications in human health." NCRP President Charles B. Meinhold is urging policy makers to disregard the draft EMF report, which was leaked to the news media before clearing peer review. Chartered by Congress in 1964, the private, nonprofit group convenes committees of volunteer scientists to review existing literature and advise government agencies on various radiation issues, explains James Spahn, a senior staff scientist at the NCRP. Like all NCRP documents, the EMF report will be subjected to an extensive peer-review process, Spahn adds. While NCRP officials are scrambling to downplay the leaked report, it's being praised by the U.S. EPA, which provided $235,000 worth of funding for the study. "This is the first comprehensive review of the world's literature on extremely low-frequency EMFs," claims EPA Project Officer Joe Elder. But Elder can't predict whether the report will influence U.S. policy because the EPA is no longer primarily responsible for EMF research. In October 1992, Congress shifted EMF research to the U.S. Department of Energy and the NIEHS, by establishing the Electric and Magnetic Fields Research and Public Information Dissemination (EMF RAPID) Program. Dan VanderMeer, NIEHS director of program planning and evaluation and manager of the EMF RAPID Program, says the NCRP draft report won't grab his attention unless peer reviewers give it the green light. "We're not going to do anything until we have a final document," he says. "The NIEHS official position is that there are inadequate data to make any recommendations about EMF exposure levels." W. Ross Adey, chair of the 11-member NCRP committee, declines to say much about the draft report, although excerpts appeared in the July/August 1995 issue of Microwave News. "The report speaks for itself," says Adey, a neurologist and chief of research at the Pettis Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Loma Linda, California. In a 1993 interview with EHP, however, Adey said EMFs have clearly been shown to alter basic cellular activities. For example, he said, EMFs can disrupt the function of calcium ions, which carry signals to the interior of cells, where growth and metabolism are controlled. Also, EMFs may interfere with communication or "whispering" between cells, he said. Biological studies, Adey said, suggest that EMFs may co-promote tumor growth by working in tandem with chemical pollutants. The draft NCRP report says numerous epidemiological studies in the United States and Europe "indicate a positive association between childhood cancers and exposure to magnetic fields" stronger than about 2 mG. Strong EMFs have also been statistically linked to increased rates of adult leukemia and brain cancer among workers in certain industries, the report says. Though biological studies have not yet revealed an "unequivocal link" between EMFs and cancer, the committee says, animal and tissue models "are consistent with an initiation-promotion (epigenetic) model of tumor formation." In light of such findings, the committee concludes, EMF exposure should be drastically reduced. Achieving a 2-mG goal could prove extremely challenging, however, since household appliances generate much stronger fields, at least on a periodic basis. An electric shaver, for example, may produce up to 600 mG of electromagnetic energy, according to public information prepared by the NIEHS. People living within 50 feet of a 115-kilovolt electrical transmission line might be subjected to a 6.5-mG field on a continuous basis, the NIEHS says, and a 500-kilovolt line could pump out 29.4 mG at the same distance. Thomas S. Tenforde, a vice president for the NCRP and chief scientist in the health division of Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory, says a 2-mG ambient exposure limit "would really shut down some technologies," such as electric trains. "There are limits to what one can consider for the sake of safety without going back to the Dark Ages," adds Tenforde, who will help review the draft report on EMFs. Nevertheless, Constantine J. Maletskos, an NCRP consultant and executive secretary for the report, believes the EMF report will ultimately be approved--perhaps within the first half of 1996. Because NCRP reports are scrutinized by 75 council members and other experts, however, the review process can result in "vast changes," the NCRP's Spahn cautions. Whether or not the 2-mG recommendation makes it through review, the EMF debate is destined to continue as additional reports are made public. For instance, researchers at the National Institute for Working Life (NIWL) in Stockholm say studies reveal a "credible but weak" association between certain cancers and EMF exposure, reports Kjell Hansson Mild, an associate professor for NIWL in Umeå. Based on a 1995 literature review published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, Mild says, the advisory group endorses "prudent avoidance" of excessive EMFs, but steers clear of recommending exposure limits. The National Research Council expects to release a status report on the EMF RAPID initiative within the next few weeks, reports John Zimbrick, director of the NRC's Board on Radiation Effects. Another NRC report on potential EMF health effects should be distributed by January or February 1996, Zimbrick says. Also in January, the EPA hopes to release an EMF report focusing on cancer risks. Robert McGaughy, a staff member at the EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment, says the report contains no recommendations, but conclusions about cancer risks are "similar" to the NCRP report. Robert L. Park, a physicist and spokesperson for the American Physical Society (APS), is harshly critical of Adey and the draft NCRP report. Park, who dismissed EMF safety fears in an April 1995 statement prepared on behalf of the 45,000-member APS, lambasted the NCRP draft in a September 29 letter to the editors of Science. The NCRP document "was leaked by its authors," Park charged, "precisely because they knew its prospects for adoption by [the NCRP] lie somewhere between slim and zero." Adey is angered by Park's allegations, and he hotly denies any involvement in the news leak. Louis Slesin, editor and publisher of Microwave News, confirms that "Adey did not leak the report, nor did any member of the committee." Described by VanderMeer as "highly respected" in his field, Adey insists that the biological evidence of EMF health effects can no longer be ignored by U.S. policy makers. Another NCRP committee member, David O. Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Albany, agrees, saying "the evidence is sufficiently strong" to warrant regulatory action. New legislation to limit EMF exposure seems unlikely, however. Congressman George Miller (D-California) had proposed legislation several years ago to ban new schools and day-care centers in areas where EMFs exceed 2 mG. But that proposal was abandoned, according to Daniel Weiss, a spokesperson for Miller. "We gave up on that issue," Weiss says, citing "the inconclusiveness of the evidence." Nor does it seem likely that the EMF issue will
be resolved in the courts. In California, Marie Covalt of Orange County is suing
the San Diego Gas & Electric Company, charging that high EMF levels have made
her home uninhabitable. Fifteen leading scientists, including at least nine physicists
and six Nobel laureates, filed an opinion on behalf of the power company, arguing
that "no serious danger to health due to exposure to normal intensities of
low frequency electromagnetic fields has been established." Epidemiological
surveys have failed to rule out all potential risk factors, the scientists say,
and biological effects aren't consistently repeatable. |