Electric Power Transmission - Health Concerns

Health Concerns

Some large studies, including a large United States study, have failed to find any link between living near power lines and developing any sickness or diseases such as cancer. One old study from 1997 found that it did not matter how close you were to a power line or a sub-station, there was no increased risk of cancer or illness.

The mainstream scientific evidence suggests that low-power, low-frequency, electromagnetic radiation associated with household currents and high transmission power lines does not constitute a short or long term health hazard. Some studies, however, have found statistical correlations between various diseases and living or working near power lines. No adverse health effects have been substantiated for people not living close to powerlines.

There are established biological effects for acute high level exposure to magnetic fields well above 100 µT (1000 mG). In a residential setting, there is "limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and less than sufficient evidence for carcinogenicity in experimental animals", in particular, childhood leukaemia, associated with average exposure to residential power-frequency magnetic field above 0.3 µT (3 mG) to 0.4 µT (4 mG). These levels exceed average residential power-frequency magnetic fields in homes which are about 0.07 µT (0.7 mG) in Europe and 0.11 µT (1.1 mG) in North America.

Read more about this topic:  Electric Power Transmission

Famous quotes containing the words health and/or concerns:

    ...I am who I am because I’m a black female.... When I was health director in Arkansas ... I could talk about teen-age pregnancy, about poverty, ignorance and enslavement and how the white power structure had imposed it—only because I was a black female. I mean, black people would have eaten up a white male who said what I did.
    Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)

    Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.
    Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)