Re: Electric fields pose cancer risk

[Keith Welch <welch@jlab.org>]

>> [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) 
>
>the panel was asked whether power-frequency fields were carcinogenic.
>Under their rules, the possibilities were limited to:
>- proven human carcinogen
>- probable human carcinogen
>- possible human carcinogen
>- proven non-carcingenic in humans
>- unclassifiable
>
>The panel unanimously voted that power frequency fields were not probable
>carcinogens, but most also felt that it was impossible to prove that
>something was absolutely not a carcinogen, so they were left with
>"possible carcinogen".  

>"Not blood likely" was not a choice that the panel was given (:
>
>Since there is no test, or finite set of tests, that can prove that an
>agent is not carcinogenic (at any level or under any conditions),
>everything that is not a "proven carcinogen" is a "possible carcinogen:.
>
>The press appears to have missed thus subtely.

The press missing it somehow doesn't surprise me, but you would think that
the folks at NIH would "know better" than even including such a category.
Maybe there are some built-in qualifiers in the rules somewhere that under
some circumstance allow them to classify something that way (eg. "a
Mercedes Benz is not a carcinogen provided you do not injest it, inhale it,
or absorb it through your skin").  But if in fact there are no tests that
can prove something not to be carcinogenic, why is that an option?  Did the
bureaucrats on high make the list and bestow it on the scientists?

Maybe they should modify their options to include the "not bloody likely"  :)


Keith Welch
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Newport News VA
welch@cebaf.gov
Ph: (757)269-7212
FAX:(757)269-5048