Possible Health Effects of Exposure to Residential Electric and Magnetic Fields (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
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Department of Energy to enter into an agreement with the NAS, the National Research Council convened the Committee on the Possible Effects of Electromagnetic Fields on Biologic Systems. The committee was asked "to review and evaluate the existing scientific information on the possible effects of exposure to electric and magnetic fields on the incidence of cancer, on reproduction and developmental abnormalities, and on neurobiologic response as reflected in learning and behavior." The committee was asked to focus on exposure modalities found in residential settings.
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Specifically, no conclusive and consistent evidence shows that exposures to residential electric and magnetic fields produce cancer, adverse neurobehavioral effects, or reproductive and developmental effects. The committee reviewed residential exposure levels to electric and magnetic fields, evaluated the available epidemiologic studies, and examined laboratory investigations that used cells, isolated tissues, and animals.
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It would be desirable for future research to identify the source of the association between wire codes and childhood leukemia, even if the source has nothing to do with magnetic fields. · In the aggregate, epidemiologic evidence does not support possible associations of magnetic fields with adult cancers, pregnancy outcome, neurobehavioral disorders, and childhood cancers other than leukemia.
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However, the highest field strengths to which a resident might be exposed (those associated with appliances) can produce electric fields within a small region of the body that are comparable to or even larger than the naturally occurring fields, although the magnitude of the largest locally induced fields in the body is not accurately known.
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Because the mechanisms through which electric and magnetic fields might produce adverse health effects are obscure, the characteristics of the electric or magnetic fields that need to be measured for testing the linkage of these fields to disease are unclear. In most studies, the root-mean-square (rms)
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. The overall conclusion, based on the evaluation of these studies, is that exposures to electric and magnetic fields at 50-60 Hz induce changes in cultured cells only at field strengths that exceed typical residential field strengths by factors of 1,000 to 100,000.
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In either case, general adverse behavioral effects have not been demonstrated. · Neuroendocrine changes associated with magnetic-field exposure have been reported; however, alterations in neuroendocrine function by magnetic-field exposures have not been shown to cause adverse health effects.
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Despite the observed reduction in pineal and blood melatonin concentrations in some animals as a consequence of magnetic-field exposure, studies of humans provide no conclusive evidence to date that human melatonin concentrations respond similarly. In animals with observed melatonin changes, adverse health effects have not been shown to be associated with electric- or magnetic-fieldrelated depression in melatonin.
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