Shock Journalism

The junk reporting behind the power line-cancer connection

Michael Fumento from the January 1995 issue

(Page 5 of 5)

There are plenty of reasons to doubt an EMF-cancer link, as presented above. But even if it is true, what is the worst case scenario? Neighborhoods and schools exploding with cancer and other illnesses that Brodeur describes? Hardly. Sweden, with a population of 8 million, has about 70 cases of childhood leukemia a year. Dr. Ahlbom, chief author of the Swedish study that Brodeur so heavily relies on, nonetheless told TheNew York Times, "We're debating whether or not at most one childhood leukemia per year out of those 70 might be attributed to high voltage power lines." Sweden's population is about one 30th that of the United States, so that one Swedish leukemia would extrapolate to 30 American ones. Childhood leukemia is curable about 70 percent of the time, meaning the Ahlbom formula would attribute nine American children's deaths to power line-induced leukemia.

Dr. Jørgen Olsen, author of the aforementioned Danish study, also said that even if power lines did cause cancer, EMF would be responsible for "one case every five years in Denmark, which has a population of five million." That figure, extrapolated to the United States, would be about 10 cases a year, and three deaths.

Further evidence that the number of childhood leukemia cases caused by EMF in the United States, if any, is quite tiny is the utter lack of any correspondingly large rise in leukemia cases with the 438 percent increase in per capita electricity use in this country from 1950-87. While there has also been an increase in per capita childhood leukemia cases reported nationally during this period, it is less than one 10th the rate of increase of electricity use, and most or all cases may be due to more complete reporting. Connecticut's tumor registry, the first truly comprehensive program in the country, has seen virtually no increase in childhood cancers overall or childhood leukemia specifically.

Reluctant Sources

The scientific debate about possible EMF risk is ongoing. But it is those on whom Brodeur depends for scientific backing who are most critical of his writing, presumably because they feel their work is being misappropriated.

To read Brodeur, you would think Sam Milham has provided the smoking gun linking worker exposure to EMF and cancer. Yet the Worcester (Mass.) Sunday Telegram cited Milham as saying, "My mind is still open on whether the general public has a significant risk." But, he said, "to put things in perspective, I don't think the risk is an inordinate one. In other words, a whole lot of cancer can't be related to electric fields and power lines."

David Savitz is probably the best-known EMF epidemiologist. He authored a Denver study linking power lines to childhood leukemia and is cited repeatedly in The New Yorker and Currents of Death. Brodeur writes, "Far and away the greatest blow to the effort of the utility industry to deny that 60-hertz electric and magnetic fields could pose a health hazard came on November 20, 1986, when Savitz and his colleagues announced the results of their long-awaited...study."

But Savitz panned Currents of Death in his review in the Journal of the American Medical Association, writing: "If held to the standard of a balanced, scientific review of the evidence, Currents of Death simply fails. There is little evident attempt to separate legitimate criticism of the scientific evidence suggesting health harm from irrational resistance based on the implications of that evidence. Personal or institutional bias is invoked as the only possible reason for failure to accept what the author (but few others) considers irrefutable evidence. Deficiencies in some studies are not mentioned, while contradictory evidence receives strong criticism."

Indeed, in response to the Brodeur EMF scare, Savitz felt compelled to issue an open letter to "Persons concerned about reports of electromagnetic fields and childhood cancer." In it, he stressed the inconclusive results of his study and stated that "interest or concern may be justified, but our study is not sufficiently convincing to warrant drastic action by homeowners."

That statement, like Milham's, has never made it into any of Brodeur's works.

Each child's death is a tragedy, but there are many potential tragedies parents must worry about that are both far more certain and far greater than EMF exposure. Each year, 2,000 people between the ages of 5 and 14 are killed in traffic accidents, with 120,000 injured and often crippled for life. Most of these deaths and injuries could have been prevented through use of safety restraints. Trichopoulos, the Harvard epidemiologist, notes that it doesn't take much imagination to realize it is far easier and less expensive to reduce that figure than to try to reduce a number approaching zero to an even lower number. Ahlbom himself has said, "That's the type of information that's very difficult for people to grasp. People just think, 'It's a risk, and if it's a risk it must be significant.' That's not the case." He added, "Getting across how small these numbers are is extremely difficult." Especially when a crusading reporter at an influential magazine has made it his life's ambition to do just the opposite.