Power lines - "possible carcinogen or group 2b" for childhood leukaemia - IARC

Bog Butter

As a person who might soon be living in close proximity to extra high voltage overhead transmission lines I would interested to hear your views on the possible health risks outlined in the quote below, which I took from here:

http://www.pylonpressure.ie/web/NEPP/Underground/Health

Issues of Concern to the Public

Extra High voltage overhead transmission lines are classified as a "possible carcinogen or group 2b" for childhood leukaemia by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Other agencies have the same classification for other forms of
cancer.
International compliance limits set for exposure to electromagnetic fields are currently set at 250 times higher than the levels being observed to cause a doubling of the risk of developing childhood leukaemia. Threshold levels should be set well below - rather than above - where increased health effects are being documented.
Since the year 2000 there have been 107 scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals. Sixty nine of those linked electro-magnetic fields to various forms of cancer, thirty were inconclusive and only eight showed no links.
A significant body of research by Draper et al. in 2005 in Britain found that living within 200m of high power lines increases a child's chance of getting leukaemia by 69% and within 600m it was increased by an average of 20%. EirGrid currently will not even commit to placing the lines a minimum of 50 metres, without exception, from
existing dwellings. A report in 2007 by the UK Government Stakeholder Advisory Group on electromagnetic fields notes that there is a cost/benefit analysis for all health issues of 1:50. That is, one €1 million spent reducing electromagnetic field exposure is recouped in €50 million worth of health benefits.

AtomicHorror

malman wrote: »

As a person who might soon be living in close proximity to extra high voltage overhead transmission lines I would interested to hear your views on the possible health risks outlined in the quote below, which I took from here:

http://www.pylonpressure.ie/web/NEPP/Underground/Health

What I would suggest is that you do some digging in the research literature. Websites such as the one you have linked tend to be run by pressure groups that have fixated on some cause (be it power lines, vaccines or mobile phones) and will basically not change their minds irrespective of any evidence. Their opening line says it all:

"The majority of people believe that electro-magnetic fields from overhead electricity lines adversely affect their health."

They state this as though it were in some manner meaningful. The whole point of science is that people's assumptions, gut feelings and common sense are more often wrong than right when it comes to complex issues.

None of this means that what they're saying is wrong, but I'd suggest scepticism. The focus on the website seems to be increases in childhood leukaemia rates and, as far as I know, childhood leukaemia is very rare. Even doubling the rate of a very rare thing is not much to talk about, and could very easily be random rather than evidence of a real causal relationship. What I gather is that the evidence is mixed. But these guys have decided that their position is a done deal. And that's not a very scientific position to hold.

Bog Butter

Thanks for the reply. I would agree with what you are saying regarding pressure groups in general. Thats why I thought i'd look in to it myself. I generally try not to don't jump on the band wagon for the sake of it. On the other hand I don't want to be pro pylons just for the sake of it either. I'll try and do some research on it.

Capt'n Midnight

AtomicHorror wrote: »

What I would suggest is that you do some digging in the research literature. Websites such as the one you have linked tend to be run by pressure groups that have fixated on some cause (be it power lines, vaccines or mobile phones) and will basically not change their minds irrespective of any evidence.

Look at the damage done by Andrew Wakefield. People have DIED needlessly because they weren't vaccinated. And the confidence hasn't been fully restored and so we will have to vaccinate and advertise for years after we could have eradicated the diseases involved, at a cost of millions that could have been spent on other areas of the health service.

Moving electric pylons is very expensive, as you will waste even more electricity in an alternative system than is already lost in resistance. Anyway until recently most TV's put out more radiation and they have very strong electric fields too. Same thing with microwave ovens.

People worry about mobile phone masts and yet if you put a radiation blocker on your phone it will increase it's radiation output vastly in an attempt to reach the base station.

Some of these dangers may exist. But the level of risk involved is so slight that we would be better off banning alcohol, tobacco and private owner ship of cars.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4743

The original paper, which was based on parental and medical reports of just a dozen children, suggested a "possible relation" between autism, bowel disease, and MMR. The paper added it "did not prove an association".
...
The Lancet has been embroiled in what Horton calls an "enormously confusing" debate in recent weeks after media reports revealed Wakefield did not disclose financial and professional conflicts of interest in the original paper. The UK's medical oversight body, the General Medical Council, is considering an investigation of these charges. They include the fact that Wakefield received £55,000 from the UK's legal aid board for another study to investigate whether parents had a basis to sue over a possible connection between MMR and autism.

AtomicHorror

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Look at the damage done by Andrew Wakefield. People have DIED needlessly because they weren't vaccinated.

Yes. That's one of my pet rant topics actually. Mind you, Wakefield merely delivered his opinion and published a paper that didn't back it up. It took the jackasses in the media to turn it into a health scare. Not many random parents read The Lancet, but plenty of the read The Daily Mail.

Bog Butter

Ok well. It did not take me too long. I went to the medical journal BMJ.

http://www.bmj.com/

The anti pylon group use the following as part of their argument:

Childhood cancer in relation to distance from high voltage power lines in England and Wales: a case-control study

Gerald Draper, honorary senior research fellow1, Tim Vincent, research officer1, Mary E Kroll, statistician1, John Swanson, scientific adviser2
1 Childhood Cancer Research Group, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6HJ, 2 National Grid Transco plc, London WC2N 5EH
Correspondence to: G J Draper gerald.draper@ccrg.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Objective To determine whether there is an association between distance of home address at birth from high voltage power lines and the incidence of leukaemia and other cancers in children in England and Wales.
Design Case-control study.

Setting Cancer registry and National Grid records.

Subjects Records of 29 081 children with cancer, including 9700 with leukaemia. Children were aged 0-14 years and born in England and Wales, 1962-95. Controls were individually matched for sex, approximate date of birth, and birth registration district. No active participation was required.

Main outcome measures Distance from home address at birth to the nearest high voltage overhead power line in existence at the time.

Results Compared with those who lived > 600 m from a line at birth, children who lived within 200 m had a relative risk of leukaemia of 1.69 (95% confidence interval 1.13 to 2.53); those born between 200 and 600 m had a relative risk of 1.23 (1.02 to 1.49). There was a significant (P < 0.01) trend in risk in relation to the reciprocal of distance from the line. No excess risk in relation to proximity to lines was found for other childhood cancers.

Conclusions There is an association between childhood leukaemia and proximity of home address at birth to high voltage power lines, and the apparent risk extends to a greater distance than would have been expected from previous studies. About 4% of children in England and Wales live within 600 m of high voltage lines at birth. If the association is causal, about 1% of childhood leukaemia in England and Wales would be attributable to these lines, though this estimate has considerable statistical uncertainty. There is no accepted biological mechanism to explain the epidemiological results; indeed, the relation may be due to chance or confounding.

However:

BMJ 2005;330:1279-1280 (4 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7503.1279

Editorial

The causes of childhood leukaemia

Delayed exposure to infection may trigger leukaemia after prenatal damage to DNA

About one child in 2000 develops leukaemia before the age of 15: most cases are acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.1 Childhood leukaemia is a biologically diverse disease, so several pathways to its development are possible. All probably combine genetic susceptibility and exposure to external risk factors at a time when the child is vulnerable.

[EDIT]

In this issue (p 1290), Draper et al report on a very large case-control study, which found that a child's risk of leukaemia increased steadily with proximity to high voltage power lines of the home they lived in at birth.12 However, this study did not include estimates or measures of the magnetic field from either the power lines or other sources. So it provides little evidence that the increased risk closer to power lines is due to magnetic fields. Furthermore, its matching of controls to cases on the basis of administrative areas may have yielded controls who were not completely representative of the distance of children's homes from power lines. Finally, the risk of childhood leukaemia varies geographically, so the increased risk closer to power lines may reflect some other factor that varies geographically. Even if the effect is causal, it could account for only a tiny proportion of cases.

We don't yet fully understand the aetiology of childhood leukaemia. Nevertheless, we are now reasonably sure that it often involves damage to DNA before birth—probably in response to infection, chemicals, ionising radiation, or other environmental exposures.6 These preleukaemic cells are converted into overt disease after birth if children are susceptible—because of their genetic make up and early protection from infection—and experience one or more further events, often a delayed challenge from infections. Further insights will almost certainly come as advancing technology helps us to understand the molecular events that drive leukaemic changes.


Heather O Dickinson, principal research associate
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Centre for Health Services Research, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4AA (heather.dickinson@ncl.ac.uk )

GenericUser

There have been High Voltage power line of the type (400kV) being planned in the northeast in existance in Ireland for over 20 years. They run for 430kms between moneypoint in county clare and dunstown in kildare and woodland in meath. And they are also perfectly safe.
How about a study of the incidence of cancers in the counties on which they run through?

Bog Butter

There are no 400kV High Voltage power lines in Ireland as of yet as far as I am aware. Below is a link to Eirgrid.

http://www.eirgrid.com/EirgridPortal/Home.aspx

GenericUser

malman wrote: »

There are no 400kV High Voltage power lines in Ireland as of yet as far as I am aware. Below is a link to Eirgrid.

http://www.eirgrid.com/EirgridPortal/Home.aspx

Trust me..there is.

Page 5 of this report:
http://www.eirgrid.com/EirgridPortal/uploads/Publications/System%20Performance%20Report%202008.pdf

Table 3.5:

The transmission system is a meshed network of high voltage lines

(110 kV, 220 kV and 400 kV) and cables for the transmission of bulk
electricity supplies around Ireland. This excludes the Dublin 110 kV
network and some other specific 110 kV circuits which are part of the

distribution system.

The 400kV network was built in the eighties to link moneypoint power plant with the major demand area at the time which was dublin.

Capt'n Midnight

Don't forget that by their nature Nuclear power plants need high voltage power lines, there is also the pollution form power plants to take into consideration.

or could it simply be that power lines are more common in poorer areas where you would expect poorer health anyway ?

Bog Butter

OK so there is nothing unique about these power lines so?

DrIndy

In scottish criminal law - you can get 3 verdicts as opposed to the irish 2 of guilty and not guilty.

In scotland you get not guilty/ not proven/ guilty. For all intents and purposes the first two result in a dismissal of charges.

Powerlines causing leukaemia are in my opinion from following the topic - Not Proven.

Bear in mind though - most leukaemias have no clear cause where there is no specific strong genetic link.