Power Lines in New Link to Childhood Leukaemia
by Roger Highfield

A leaked Government-commissioned report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer.

A draft paper urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high voltage power cables to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid.

The Stakeholder Advisory Group on Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation (Sage) says a ban is the "best available option", pointing out that some countries have "corridors" for high voltage power lines where development is not allowed.

The report was drawn up for the Department of Health by "stakeholders" including scientists, electricity company bosses, the National Grid, government officials and campaigners over two years.

It comes after the Health Protection Agency accepted there was a weak statistical "association" between prolonged exposure to power fields and childhood leukaemia. The report stops short of specifically recommending a ban on new homes and schools within 200 feet of power lines, or vice versa, which could wipe up to "£2 billion or more" off property prices and limit housing developments. However, it states: "We urge government to make a clear decision on whether to implement this option or not."

The 40 stakeholders have clashed over the final details and conclusions and it is unclear whether the leaked draft dated March 16 will be modified at a meeting of Sage scheduled for next week.

Two members of the panel, the regulator Ofgem and Scottish & Southern Energy, are understood to have quit.

Some stakeholders took the view - adopted by the Government's health advisers and the World Health Organisation - that childhood leukaemia is the only adverse health effect where evidence is strong enough for precautionary measures. According to this view, if there is a link, the building ban would cut just one case of childhood leukaemia every year or two and the costs would outweigh the benefits by a factor of at least 20.

But others have backed a California Department of Health Services paper in 2002 which suggested electromagnetic fields are "possibly carcinogenic" in terms of childhood leukaemia. It also cited four other health effects - adult leukaemia, adult brain tumours, miscarriages and motor neurone disease.

"The advice to government from following this 'California' view would therefore be to tend to favour implementing the 'corridors for new build' option," Sage added, stressing that this is why it has not been able to form a consensus.

The panel also recommends that the Health Protection Agency should issue more information about how to reduce the impact of exposure to electromagnetic fields.

For some years, there has been concern about cancer risks among people living near power lines. A pooled analysis of several studies suggests that the possibility exists of a doubling of the risk of leukaemia in children in homes at high levels of exposure to extremely low frequency (50-60 Hz) magnetic fields.

For the overwhelming majority of children living in homes with magnetic field levels below a given level - estimated to be 99.6 per cent of children in the UK Childhood Cancer Study - the data was consistent with no increased risk.

For higher magnetic fields levels, the leukaemia risk was estimated to be double.
The Daily Telegraph, 21st April 2007

Wi-Fi: Children at Risk From 'Electronic Smog'
by Geoffrey Lean, environment editor

Revealed - radiation threat from new wireless computer networks.
Teachers demand inquiry to protect a generation of pupils.

Britain's top health protection watchdog is pressing for a formal investigation into the hazards of using wireless communication networks in schools amid mounting concern that they may be damaging children's health, 'The Independent on Sunday' can reveal.

Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency, wants pupils to be monitored for ill effects from the networks - known as Wi-Fi - which emit radiation and are being installed in classrooms across the nation.

Sir William - who is a former chief scientific adviser to the Government, and has chaired two official inquiries into the hazards of mobile phones - is adding his weight to growing pressure for a similar examination of Wi-Fi, which some scientists fear could cause cancer and premature senility.

Wi-Fi - described by the Department of Education and Skills as a "magical" system that means computers do not have to be connected to telephone lines - is rapidly being taken up in schools, with estimates that more than half of primary schools - and four-fifths of secondary schools - have installed it.

But several European provincial governments have already taken action to ban, or limit, its use in the classroom, and Stowe School has partially removed it after a teacher became ill.

This week the Professional Association of Teachers, which represents 35,000 staff across the country, will write to Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Education, to demand an official inquiry. Virtually no studies have been carried out into Wi-Fi's effects on pupils, but it gives off radiation similar to emissions from mobile phones and phone masts.

Recent research has linked radiation from mobiles to cancer and to brain damage. And many studies have found disturbing symptoms in people near masts.

Professor Olle Johansson, of Sweden's prestigious Karolinska Institute, who is deeply concerned about the spread of Wi-Fi, says there are "thousands" of articles in scientific literature demonstrating "adverse health effects". He adds: "Do we not know enough already to say, 'Stop!'?"

For the past 16 months, the provincial government of Salzburg in Austria has been advising schools not to install Wi-Fi, and is considering a ban. Dr Gerd Oberfeld, its head of environmental health and medicine, calls the technology "dangerous".

Sir William - who takes a stronger position on the issue than his agency - was not available for comment yesterday, but two members of an expert group that he chairs on the hazards of radiation spoke of his concern.

Mike Bell, chairman of the Electromagnetic Radiation Research Trust, says that he has been "very supportive of having Wi-Fi examined and doing something about it". And Alasdair Philips, director of Powerwatch, an information service, said that he was pressing for monitoring of the health of pupils exposed to Wi-Fi.

Labour MP Ian Gibson, who was interviewed with Sir William for a forthcoming television programme, last week said that he backed proposals for an inquiry. The Independent on Sunday, 22nd April 2007