Vedi anche: Richard Doll Falls into Plutonium Trap - Richard Bramhall, novembre 1999
Anniversario nuclearista: Regina e Papa festeggiano (17 ottobre 2000)

Quello che stupisce è perché la Regina faccia "Sir" individui così. Evidentemente vuole lasciare una certa immagine di sé: che non vi siano dubbi, insomma.

March 4 2001 BRITAIN
Top scientists establish link
Pylons are cancer risk - official
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/03/04/fpcontent.html
Jonathan Leake Science Editor

Families may sue over cancer link to pylons HIGH voltage power cables have been officially linked to cancer for the first time. A study shows that children living near them run a small but significant increased risk of falling victim to the disease.

Sir Richard Doll, the epidemiologist who discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1960s, will this week warn that children living near electricity power lines are at an increased risk from leukaemia.

He is also expected to say that there may be a link with adult cancers but that this is unproven. His work was commissioned by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), the government's radiation watchdog.

Doll is chairman of its Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation (Agnir). He has spent months analysing the results of studies on cancer among people living near power cables.

It is the first time a British government body has accepted the link between cancer and power lines.

It raises the possibility of multi-million-pound claims by families who have blamed their children's illnesses on the cables. It could also reopen campaigns by local groups to have power lines buried underground or moved away from homes.

Professor Colin Blakemore, a member of Doll's group, said: "The evidence is that there is a slightly elevated risk of cancer near to power lines. We are going to acknowledge that evidence exists indicating an association between power lines and cancer."

Blakemore said the mechanism was uncertain but could be due to the high voltage lines emitting charged particles called ions which may then be inhaled.

Blakemore added: "It's important to acknowledge that there is a link and we need to do more research on it. Putting power lines underground would be a possibility. The cost would be enormous if we did this to existing power lines, but it is something that we may have to take into account for future development and especially new housing."

Doll's report will emphasise that more research is needed to confirm the mechanism. Previous studies - which have been considered by Doll's expert committee - have suggested that tens of thousands of people in Britain live close enough to power lines to be affected by strong electromagnetic fields.

The analysis in the new report suggests that a small number of children each year could develop cancer.

The link between overhead power lines and cancer was first made in America in 1979. By 1990 several independent British studies had also suggested that electromagnetic fields could damage health. However, successive reports ruled out the connection and legal action by sufferers against electricity companies was abandoned.

The NRPB oversees safety research and regulation for all kinds of radiation. It has always taken a cautious approach to claims that power lines affect health, but this weekend insiders were acknowledging that it may have to revise its policies.

Martyn Day, the solicitor who in the mid-1990s pursued unsuccessful claims on behalf of leukaemia victims, believes that the findings could enable legal action to reopen.

"This is probably the most significant step forward for 10 years," he said. "I was forced to back off, pack away the files and put them into archives, but this may well mean I will start to dust them off once more."

The Electricity Association, which represents many of Britain's power generators and distributors, said there was no concrete evidence that the electric and magnetic fields generated by power lines caused cancer. "Any suggestion of a health risk, however weak, needs to be taken seriously," it added.

www.nrpb.org National Radiological Protection Board
http://www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk Bristol
University - Department of Radiation Physics

http://www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk
Powerwatch - a pressure group campaigning for better public information on potential hazards from high voltage cables

http://www.electricity.org.uk Electricity
Association

www.EM-hazard-therapy.com
www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk
www.revolt.co.uk
www.pal-uk.org

Next page: Families may sue over cancer link to pylons

March 4 2001 BRITAIN
Families may sue over cancer link to pylons
Tom Robbins and Jonathan Leake
A marked family: Maureen Asbury, second from left, has fought for an inquiry into pylons
Photograph: Richard Stanton   ©

Pylons are cancer risk - official

WHEN the Smith family moved into a 200-year-old house in the North Yorkshire countryside, they thought little of the electricity pylon towering above.

Thirty years later Jannette Smith believes that the power lines above Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, are responsible for a blight on her family.

Her brother Matthew died of liver cancer in 1988 when he was 18. Her mother died of cancer in 1996. Her father is also suffering from it. Even the family's cat and dog, along with a neighbour's pet, were diagnosed with the disease. There was no previous family history of it.

"When my brother died we assumed it was a natural disease," said Jannette, 37. "Then we saw a report in a magazine about the health risks of pylons. Now it would take an awful lot to convince me that the illnesses weren't due to the power lines."

The family was not alone in its suffering. Last year the secretary of the local branch of the National Farmers' Union began to worry that cancer was becoming increasingly common in the area. He found nine cases of the disease in 19 houses along a five-mile stretch of power lines in the Northallerton area.

The report this week by the government's Advisory
Group on Non-ionising Radiation (Agnir) will be welcomed by other families across Britain who have suffered illnesses which they believe have been caused by electromagnetic fields from power lines.

For the first time the government body will accept that children living near power lines are at a small but increased risk from leukaemia.

The link between electromagnetic fields and cancer has been bitterly contested as scientific studies offered contradictory conclusions.

In 1979 Nancy Wertheimer published findings based on studies around Denver, Colorado, which showed high levels of leukaemia in children living close to overhead power lines.

In 1990 a study by Stephen Perry, a retired Midlands GP, linked electromagnetic fields to increased rates of suicide and depression. A report by Agnir in 1992 maintained there was "no firm evidence of the existence of carcinogenic hazard". Despite this, clusters of cancer sufferers living near power lines began to be identified around the country. In Abergavenny, Gwent, four neighbours developed brain tumours within 18 months. All lived near 132,000- volt cables which they suspected of being the cause.

In the eight houses closest to overhead cables on the Shortlees estate on the outskirts of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, nine people have died of cancer in the past 15 years.

Denis Henshaw, professor of human radiation effects at Bristol University, argued that power lines produce "corona ions", molecules in the air with an electric charge. These attach themselves to airborne pollutants such as car exhaust fumes and give them an electrical charge. This means there is a greater chance of being absorbed by the body when inhaled, he believes.

Sceptical scientists dismissed the clusters as not statistically significant. But several families launched legal challenges to prove the link and to claim damages from the electricity companies.

Among them were the Studholme family who bought a house in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 1989, where an electricity meter emitted strong electromagnetic fields. Within 18 months their son Simon had developed acute lymphatic leukaemia. He died in 1992 aged 13. The family and two others were granted legal aid to sue, but suffered a setback when reports from the American National Cancer Institute ruled out the link.

Now the families and others like them may have new grounds to press for compensation. The consequences of a successful test case would be enormous. The power lines which run over or near 25,000 homes would have to be moved; they could be buried, which would significantly diminish the electromagnetic fields.

"In our house, magnetic field levels are tenfold the recommended safe limit," said Maureen Asbury, who has led a campaign to force the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to hold an inquiry into power lines in Trentham, Staffordshire. "We are not prepared to sit back and let more people fall ill."

However, the DTI turned down the request last year.

{ HEALTH }

  A WEAK link between power lines and childhood cancer will be reconfirmed this week in a report commissioned by the Government's radiation watchdog. The study, led by Professor Sir Richard Doll, the epidemiologist who showed the connection between smoking and lung cancer in the Sixties, will conclude that the vast majority of British homes near pylons and cables are not at risk.

The report, from the Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation, has reviewed all published research into power lines and health risks over the past five years. The group first reported evidence of a weak link between leukaemia and power lines in 1992.

The latest review examines all the new research published since their last report in the mid-Nineties. One of the most significant studies highlighted in the report, due to be published tomorrow and commissioned by the National Radiological Protection Board, appeared in the British Journal of Cancer last year.

A study of nine countries showed that the risk of leukaemia doubled from less than one in 20,000 cases per year to less than one in 10,000 for children with the highest exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields. In Britain, those sorts of exposures are rarely encountered in homes.

Professor Colin Blakemore, a brain specialist at Oxford University and member of the committee, said: "There is evidence, albeit not statistically that clear, of a slightly elevated risk of childhood leukaemia in association with very high mains power fields at levels that are not usual in Britain.

The elevation of risk is so small that even if it was true the effect on observed incidence of leukaemia would be negligible. I can't see that there is a hazard to children in Britain." Dr Michael Clark, spokesman for the NRPB, said: "The weak association is nothing new. The advisory group will be reporting on whether the regulations might be changed." Other research examined by the expert group came from Professor Denis Henshaw of Bristol University in 1999. After carrying out tests near 2,000 power lines, he found that the magnetic fields around cables attracted particles linked with cancer, such as benzene and radon.