ESB Rejects Claims of Childhood Leukemia Risk From Power Lines
Jun 04 - Irish Times
The ESB has dismissed new claims that exposure to electricity power lines can increase the risk of cancer, particularly childhood leukemia.
Children living within 200 metres of the overhead cables were 70 per cent
more likely to develop the disease than those living more than 600 metres away.
Children living between 200 and 600 metres away had a 20 per cent increased
risk, according to the research published in the British Medical Journal
yesterday.
Researchers conducted an eight-year investigation of 9,700 children who
developed leukemia in England and Wales between 1962 and 1995.
They found 64 of the children lived at birth within 200 metres of a power
line and 258 lived between 200 and 600 metres away. The ESB said it was
examining the findings of the UK study, but there was no scientific evidence of
cancer or any other health risk associated with its power lines.
"The possible risk to health associated with high-voltage power lines
has undergone extensive international study over the past 30 years.
"It has not been established that there is any evidence of damage to
health arising from exposure to these power lines," a spokesman for the ESB
said.
The UK research group had found a "suggested association" between
power lines and leukemia in children, but that this was statistical, not
scientific.
The author of the study, Gerald Draper, said the research team from the
Oxford childhood cancer research group had not found any scientifically valid
causal link between the cancers and proximity to power lines.
However, the statistics did suggest that living in close proximity to a power
line might be linked in some way to five cases of leukaemia a year in Britain.
The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, which is
responsible for ESB pylons and substations, said all international standards in
relation to these structures were adhered to. The British report would be
considered in the coming weeks, a spokesman said.
In answer to a Dail question asked last week by Independent TD Finian McGrath
on the health concerns associated with masts and pylons, the Minister, Noel
Dempsey, said there was "no scientific or medical evidence that
electromagnetic fields from such installations, below the level of
internationally recognised guidelines, are injurious to health".
An anti-pylon campaigner said that, while definitive scientific proof was not
yet available, populations living close to high- voltage lines were suffering
alarming cancer rates.
"I don't want to overemphasise a link until it has been totally proven,
but something is causing these cancers and leukemia.
"I would not advise anybody to live under or near these power lines and
I would not do it myself," Willie Cunningham of the Cork Anti-Pylon
Representative Association said.
There was a significant body of research that found no link between
electricity and cancer, he said.
"As a scientist myself, in many ways I would be swayed by the body of
evidence that says there is no link, but when you look into the background of it
much of that stuff is paid for by the power companies."
The British statistical evidence indicated that the jury was still out on
whether the link was a scientific fact, he said.
"If that statistic can be backed up, then it will be a cause for deep
concern."