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Powerline evidence finally elicits a precautionary response from WHO – and precautionary advice to the UK Government
The Draper report (published June 2005) and the UK SAGE stakeholder assessment (published April 2007) may have been influential in WHO finally recommending a more precautionary approach to high voltage overhead transmission lines (HVOTL) for their extreme low frequency fields (ELF) [see also Power lines for these and other references]. The association between HVOTL and childhood leukaemia is unequivocal, though mechanisms and proof of causal relation are still subject of disagreement.
Effects on adults and the issues of chronic exposure are subject of greater disagreement, but the association between electrification and certain diseases is there. Without in any way being a wholesale recognition that there is a serious problem, a UK cross-party working group on childhood leukaemia and power lines has at the same time published guidelines to government advising not just more research, but a moratorium on building within 60 metres of high voltage lines.
Sam Milham MD notes from the US:
‘An inescapable fact is that the incidence of childhood leukemia varies by at least a factor of 10 around the world, from about 5/100,000 to about 0.4/100,000. The highest rates are in electrified places and the lowest are in places in the third world with no or low levels of electrification. Historically, the age 2-4 peak of the major leukemia of childhood, cALL, didn’t appear until the 1920s, and in the US tracks the spread of residential electrification from urban to rural areas. The TEL/AML1 chromosomal translocation which is associated with cALL has very low levels in third world places compared to industrialised places.’
Questions raised
One of the perspectives taken on the issue is, quite frankly, how many children will die, and does this warrant the economic impact of change? The issue raises several questions:
- Should the limit be based on distance, or on field strength: ie is active monitoring with adequate measuring equipment an essential part of the precaution?
- What are the essential co-factors of harm from powerlines (eg, other pollutants, other vulnerabilities)?
- Are buried cables better, or bad in a different way?
- Is there a price to life?
- Can we afford to bury cables?
- Are people sufficiently well-informed of risks from living with strong power-frequency fields?
- What is the impact on house prices of establishing that there is a certain risk?
- If the risk is confirmed, does this sacrifice house prices (and should owners be compensated), or do properties become unsaleable?
- Do we owe a duty of care to vulnerable or disadvantaged people who cannot avoid the proximity of power lines?
- What are the wider issues of ELF fields from wiring and from appliances?
Further references and sources
- Cross-Party Inquiry into Childhood Leukaemia and ELF EMF
- Ban new homes near power lines, say MPs (The Guardian reports, July 2007)
- Inquiry backs ban on building near power lines (Green Building reports, July 2007)
- Extremely Low Frequency Fields, WHO Environmental Health Criteria Monograph No.238
- Stakeholder Advisory Group on ELF EMFs (SAGE). Precautionary approaches to ELF EMFs. First Interim Assessment: Power Lines and Property, Wiring in Homes, and Electrical Equipment in Homes (2007). Prior to the 2007 WHO revision. Participants disagree considerably as to the conclusions (comments are published), with industry views tending to regard cost of any further precaution as disproportionate to quantity or quality of life preserved.
- Powerwatch comments on the WHO response
- Powerwatch: MPs Inquiry backs building ban near power lines
- Cindy Sage responds to the latest WHO documents
