DANGER from the Grid

Stoate: fear of frying

Britain edged closer to a ban on house building near high voltage power lines THREE YEARS after it was first announced by the government that this could cause health risks to children.

� Call for immediate 60-metre limit
� Committee accepts link with childhood leukaemia

A committee of MPs is the latest to come out saying that new homes and schools should not be built within 60 metres of high voltage power lines until the link with childhood cancers is better understood by scientists. A UK government agency acknowledged in 2004 that adults can suffer nausea, headaches and muscle pains when exposed to electromagnetic fields from electricity pylons.

The condition known as electrosensitivity, a heightened reaction to electrical energy, will be recognised as a physical impairment.

A report by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), stated that increasing numbers of British people are suffering from the syndrome. While the total figure is not known, thousands are believed to be affected to some extent.

The latest report from a group of MPs also recommend that home buyers should be provided with information on the level of electromagnetic fields within homes before they buy.

The committee says the science is still unclear and that any health effects are weak, but in the meantime it argues that the government should adopt a precautionary approach.

The Labour MP and GP Howard Stoate, who chaired the committee, said: “The overall body of evidence shows that there is undoubtedly a link between living near very high voltage power lines and childhood leukaemia. We can’t say that one causes the other but we can say that there is an association.”

He added: “I’ve always got the view in science that if you don’t know something it is generally better to err on the side of caution, rather than to look back in 20 years time and say, if only we had done more 20 years ago.”

The most influential scientific study on the issue was published two years ago in the British Medical Journal. It looked at the health records of nearly 30,000 children with cancer, including 9,700 with leukaemia and a similarly-sized group of healthy children. The study found that those within 200 metres of power lines had a 70% increase in their chance of developing leukaemia, compared with children living more than 600 metres from a power line.

Other epidemiological studies have failed to find a link and as yet no one has come up with a convincing biological mechanism that would explain how electromagnetic fields from power lines could cause cancer.

The committee of five MPs heard estimates of the number of excess cancer deaths attributable to power lines ranging from two to 60 a year.

The committee says the government should introduce a moratorium on home and school building within 60 metres of high voltage power lines and 30 metres of low voltage lines. It also says that new power lines should not be built within 60 metres of homes and schools, and a larger building moratorium extending to 200 metres should be considered.

In evidence to the inquiry, Barratt Homes estimated that homes close to power lines already sell for 15-25% less and that if a moratorium were introduced there would be an additional dip of 15-20% in the price of such homes.

Edward Copisarow, chief executive of Children With Leukaemia, said: “This report really gives government the green light it needs to introduce precaution in the UK.”

Off-Grid reported last year that the UK government was considering a change in planning guidelines so that new homes cannot be built either within 230ft of power lines or in a location that exposes inhabitants to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) of a certain strength.

Off-Grid reported further on this issue in September 2005 when another UK government office acknowledged that adults can suffer health effects from power lines (http://www.off-grid.net/index.php?p=468 and reproduced below).

A report by Dr Gerald Draper, of the Oxford childhood cancer research group, published two years ago, suggested that children under 15 living near high-voltage power cables may have double the risk of getting leukaemia. The seven-year study was commissioned by the UK Department of Health.

However, while the research found a statistical association, it did not establish a causal link and other scientists were sceptical of the findings.

However several local councils in Scotland have delayed planning permssion for a set of huge power lines across a National Park. They are awaiting further information from the UK Health Department.

Two reports containing recommendations on the proximity of power lines to both new and existing houses, as well as advice on electrical wiring in the home, will now be presented in June.

They are being drawn up by the Stakeholder Advisory Group on Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (Sage), an advisory group set up by ministers in October 2004, following the publication of Dr Draper�s research.

The group includes representatives of the Department of Health, the National Grid, the Health Protection Agency, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Academics from Bristol University and Nottingham Trent are also members, as well as a number of campaigners from groups committed to highlighting what they believe are the potential dangers of EMFs.

Alasdair Philips, of the consumer group Powerwatch and a member of Sage, said that a large majority of those drawing up the reports was in favour of recommending precautionary advice.

�The link between childhood leukaemia and power lines is accepted pretty much worldwide.

�There is almost certainly going to be some precautionary guidance coming out of the report in June.

�There is a lot of agreement that we need to offer more precautionary advice on the siting of new house – 90 per cent of the advisory group agree with this line.

�I think it is highly likely we will see a recommendation that we change the way we wire our houses. There is no real opposition to that.�

Representatives of the National Grid and Ofgen, the industry regulator, are understood to favour a recommendation that new homes should not be built within a specific distance – likely to be 230ft – of power lines.

Others in the group, including Mr Philips, are pushing for the ban to be based on homes being exposed to a certain level of strength of EMFs.

While initial advice will be to do with restrictions on the building of new homes, Sage members will include in their supporting material an analysis of the costs of knocking down and replacing homes thought to be exposed to potential harmful field strengths.

Starting this summer two more sub groups of Sage, looking at electricity distribution and electric transport, will begin drawing up reports.

A UK government agency acknowledged in 2004 that people can suffer nausea, headaches and muscle pains when exposed to electromagnetic fields from electricity pylons.

The condition known as electrosensitivity, a heightened reaction to electrical energy, will be recognised as a physical impairment.

A report by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), stated that increasing numbers of British people are suffering from the syndrome. While the total figure is not known, thousands are believed to be affected to some extent.

According to the Electrosensitivity web site (http://www.electrosensitivity.org.uk/), symptoms include �Flu like scratchy sore throat; Pain in ears; tingling skin on face; skin rash.� Most academics studying the subject are still psychologistds trying to work out if the condition is real or imagined, but the new report will change that.

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The report, by the HRP radiation protection division, is expected to say that GPs do not know how to treat sufferers and that more research is needed to find cures. It will give a full list of the symptoms, which can include dizziness, irregular heartbeat and loss of memory.

Campaigners do not believe that the dangers include cancer. �So far none of the electrically sensitive people I know have developed cancer, cancer statistics are low but there are serious suspicions they may in certain cases be doubled or more from a very low base over a time period, or are promoted by EMFs. Get checked if you are still worried but be ready to be regarded as a neurotic if you blame EMFs, or hypochondriac or deluded or worse.

�It�s a new illness which few authorities recognise and that includes all but the most up to date GPs. It could be confused with other afflictions very easily, especially in the early stages, so if you are concerned for yourself or someone else read on and we may clarify things for you. We are here to help, not to panic or encourage worry. If you think we are just scaremongers then go direct to �scaremongering, that�s all we are�

It is serious, a minority of people for reasons unknown, are less able to cope with the mass of electromagnetic fields, the �electrosmog� we are now creating with all manner of electrical and transmitting devices, than others are, it may be in your genes.

The problem is the old one of �the personal being political� in a broad sense. Resistance against granting credibility to electrically sensitive sufferers, especially from fantastically wealthy businesses, is keeping it off the agenda of many research establishments, it is a �hot potato� upsetting funders. The media are ambiguous and spend half their time on �Ooh what a crank nutcase perspective� alternating with sensational �Your mobile phone will sear your testicles off and deform unborn children in the womb� scares.In which there is often some real truth culled out by research, but written up so it looks barmy.

Although most European countries do not recognise the condition, Britain will follow Sweden where electrosensitivity was recognised as a physical impairment in 2000. About 300,000 Swedish men and women are sufferers.

The acknowledgement may fuel legal action by sufferers who claim mobile phone masts have made them ill.

In January Sir William Stewart, chairman of the HPA and the government�s adviser on mobile phones, warned that a small proportion of the population could be harmed by exposure to electromagnetic fields, and called for careful examination of the problem.

The HPA has now reviewed all scientific literature on electrosensitivity and concluded that it is a real syndrome. The condition had previously been dismissed as psychological.

The findings should lead to better treatment for sufferers. In Sweden people who are allergic to electrical energy receive government support to reduce exposure in their homes and workplaces.

Special cables are installed in sufferers� homes while electric cookers are replaced with gas stoves. Walls, roofs, floors and windows can be covered with a thin aluminium foil to keep out the electromagnetic field � the area of energy that occurs round any electrically conductive item.

British campaigners believe electrical devices in the home and the workplace, as well as mobile phones emitting microwave radiation, have created an environmental trigger for the syndrome.

There is particular concern about exposure to emissions from mobile phone masts or base stations, often located near schools or hospitals.

In January Stewart also called for a national review of planning rules for masts. The review was launched by the government in April.

British sufferers report feeling they are being �zapped� by electromagnetic fields from appliances and go out of their way to avoid them.

Some have moved to remote areas where electromagnetic pollution is lower.

The HPA report is eagerly awaited by campaigners. Alasdair Philips, director of the campaign group Powerwatch, said: �This will help the increasing number of people who tell us their GPs do not know how to treat them.�

Rod Read, chairman of Electrosensitivity UK, added: �This will be the beginning of an awareness of a new form of pollution from electrical energy.�

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