No Cancer Link to Wires

[Susan L Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

What I find quite amazing is that some of the women were so disappointed

that this study disproved the hypothesis that household electromagnetic

fields cause cancer.  What a relief it should be that this is not a risk

for billions of people worldwide. 



My opinion only.



--Susan Gawarecki



http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liemf253345369jun25,0,1446507.story 



No Cancer Link to Wires

Study: No evidence electromagnetic fields cause breast tumors

By Dan Fagin

STAFF WRITER



June 25, 2003



A Long Island-based study, the largest and most sophisticated of its

kind, has found no evidence that electromagnetic fields from household

wiring, appliances and power lines cause breast cancer.



The long-awaited results of the $2.5-million study, first authorized in

1993, are yet another major disappointment for a determined group of

local women whose activism persuaded Congress 10 years ago to earmark

$30 million for a series of studies known as the Long Island Breast

Cancer Study Project.



"We collected a huge amount of data and we turned it upside down and

looked at it from every possible angle, and we didn't see anything" to

link electric fields to breast cancer, said the study's chief author,

Dr. M. Cristina Leske, a professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook

University Hospital.



The study, which sent investigators with handheld meters into the homes

of more than 1,100 Long Island women, was published this morning in the

online

edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.



Its release, along with a smaller study of Washington State women

published last year, are major blows to what had been one of the more

scientifically

promising suggested explanations of what's causing the majority of

breast cancer cases that can't be linked to genetics or other known risk

factors.



"It's a good study and the results are quite negative, so that's good

evidence that [electric] fields at the levels you typically find in

homes do not increase risk of breast cancer," said Richard G. Stevens, a

cancer epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center in

Farmington who first suggested more than 10 years ago that exposure to

electric fields may increase breast cancer risk.



Under Stevens' theory, exposure to electric fields and also to

artificial light during nighttime suppresses the brain's production of

the hormone melatonin, which leads to increased production of estrogen.

Except for family history, breast cancer's major known risk factors -

including early menstruation, late menopause and having children late in

life - are related to higher lifetime exposure to estrogen.



Earlier studies conducted as part of the Long Island Breast Cancer Study

Project were unable to establish a relationship between breast cancer

and exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals thought to mimic

the effects of estrogen in women's bodies.



"I think 'disappointed' is a good word to use for how we feel," said

Mary Dowden, a nurse and activist who formerly lived in Garden City and

served on an advisory board to the Stony Brook study. "I still feel

there are a lot of questions unanswered," said Dowden, who lives in

Southbury, Conn. "I really believe it hasn't been comprehensive enough."



But Deborah Winn of the National Cancer Institute, the director of the

Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project, said the Stony Brook study and

other

components of the $30-million federal project have "laid to rest several

hypotheses that had solid science behind them and plausible hypotheses

that had to be addressed." The electric field study was "extremely

definitive," Winn added. "Hopefully, it will be reassuring to many

people."



Stevens, perhaps the most prominent proponent of a breast cancer link to

electric fields, agreed the evidence shows that the weak electric fields

in most homes are not a risk. But he said the jury is still out for

people routinely exposed to stronger fields at their jobs, and he added

that studies have found reasonably strong evidence that residential

electric fields may increase the risk of childhood leukemia.



The Stony Brook-led research team not only made three trips to each home

to measure proximity to transformers and high-tension power lines, make

wiring maps and measure electric fields, they also interviewed women

about their use of electric appliances. Because a dozen years or more

can pass before a breast tumor grows large enough to diagnose, the study

included only women who had lived in their homes at least 15 years.



But no matter which way they looked at their data, the researchers got

the same results, Leske said. There were no differences in the strength

of the electric fields in the homes of the 576 women with breast cancer,

compared with the 585 women without it, she said.



While several smaller studies are pending, today's publication of the

electric field study marks one of the last milestones for the Long

Island Breast Cancer Study Project, which began with high expectations

in 1993 but is ending with widespread disappointment among many

activists and some scientists. 

-- 

.....................................................

Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

102 Robertsville Road, Suite B, Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Toll free 888-770-3073 ~ www.local-oversight.org

.....................................................

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