Re: NIH: Electric fields pose cancer risk

["Björn Cedervall" <bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com>]

Glenn: Thanks for your note. This was out in local Swedish media last 
Tuesday ("ELECTRICITY FIELDS CAN CAUSE CANCER" - a Swedish scientist 
with interest in molecular biology was involved).

This is contrasting a lot of other information (the issue is actually 
about _magnetic_ fields). Any more info about the background (copy-paste 
from any original source?) would be greatly appreciated. Other US 
scientists (13 professors in physics, chemistry and medicine including 
six Nobel Laureates) have concluded that nothing links magnetic fields 
to cancer. The Editorial of New England J. Medicine

(www.nejm.???), July 3, 1997 is a worthy reading.



There are a lot of negative ("EMF") reports that get little or no 
attention at all. Some of the confusion is about whether we are dealing 
with "associations" or "cause-effects".



When it comes to molecular biology and cell experiments, I think the 
magnetite issue has received too little attention (See Kobayashi and 
Kirschvink, Nature, Febr. 1995). Magnetite occurs "naturally" in the 
laboratory equipment and media like the Gibco RPMI 1640 (widely used in 
biol. experiments) and is readily engulfed by lymphocytes. The bottom 
line is that a lot of research money probably already has been wasted. I 
asked one "very involved person" (in the BEMS - Bioelectromagnetics 
Society) about how they exclude magnetite as a contributing cause of 
their (positive) molecular biology experiments. The answer from this 
person was approx.: "We don't believe that magnetite is a problem and 
therefore do not bother about it. It can probably be seen as a dead end 
today." The magnetite issue has been known, at least since 1993 
(according to an EPRI report) and still this person continues to publish 
articles like the magnetite question didn't exist.



Sincerely Yours,



bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com

Dept. Medical Radiation Biology,

Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

----------------------------------------------------------

>Uranium Institute News Briefing 98.26

>

>[NB98.26-18] A panel of US experts has concluded that electricity 
pylons and

>power lines do pose a cancer risk. After 10 days of discussions and

>consideration of evidence, 19 out of 28 members of a panel of the 
National

>Institutes of Health voted that electric fields should be considered 
possible

>human carcinogens; eight of the dissenters were undecided about whether 
a link

>exists. (Independent, 26 June, p7) 

>

>[www.uilondon.org]

>

>Glenn

>GACMail98@aol.com



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