Electric lines and leukemia - WAS: Lifestyle/Dietary Changes?/AnneK

[Guest guest]

>

> Hi Anne,

>

> I just want to comment on the Power Lines thing. I lived in a town

> for 15 years and was approx. less than 1/4 of a mile from major power

> lines. My next door neighbors abutted the power lines. Their third

> child, a daughter got leukemia, I can't remember what type (It was 3

> letters and started with " A " ) but it was very serious.. Her mother

had always told me, from day

> one, that she felt it was the power lines.

> Who knows??

I'm apologizing in advance for being long-winded again.

I think there may have been some studies done, but I haven't read them.

You also need to be careful to see who paid for them. If they were paid

for by utilities or groups of utilities (like EPRI - Electric Power

Research Institute) they could be biased. They could also be biased

*against* the power lines if they were written by 'experts' who get

most of their money for the *other* side in litigation. Unfortunately

money can buy 'massaging' the data to get rid of the ones that don't

fit the theory someone is trying to prove. And the money can come from

either side.

That being said, there are practical problems with studies like this

because one of the first things they need to do is to determine

exposure, preferably dose (how much exposure), to see how many children

live within a certain distance (they decide) of power lines for a

certain time (they decide). That is, they need to see how many children

were *exposed* to power lines and for how long. Then they need to check

how many of these get leukemia or brain cancer or whatever, compared to

children who don't live close to the power lines. Then it can be

complicated by the fact kids go to school, so they might spend a good

portion of their day *away* from the power lines, even if they live

close. And conversely, if a school is near power lines, you'll get kids

who don't live close to power lines exposed for a good portion of their

day. So conducting such a study properly wouldn't be very easy to do.

I don't know whether there have been such attempts, or what their

results are. But I do know that unless there are studies like this

done, there isn't enough evidence to know for sure. Your neighbor might

be right in believing in her gut that the power lines caused her

child's leukemia. But that's not enough evidence for *other* people to

believe - just as we don't convict accused murderers based on the gut

feeling of the victim's mother, even if she's right. The courts need

more evidence, in order to be fair to the other side, which has rights

not to be convicted without sufficient evidence. From the scientific

viewpoint, you can't just go collecting examples of kids who got

leukemia after living near powerlines without also collecting examples

of kids who got leukemia after living far away from power lines.

Perhaps the kids near the power lines would have gotten it anyway if

they lived farther away. I'm no big fan of Corporate America, but I do

think they shouldn't be punished if it turns out they are innocent for

once. Or at least not guilty of that particular offence. ;-)

If they are guilty, and covered it up knowingly, I think the SOBs

should be slammed.

So the issue is complicated, and expensive, to resolve properly. People

can make decisions with their guts, and that's fine as long as it

affects only them. I do it myself all the time ;-). But it's a whole

other story when you need to convince other people to do something that

affects yet someone else. Unless you're CEO or chief honcho and can

just dictate to others below you in your company (and your decision

might be right - or it might be wrong, but you do get obeyed for the

most part.)

As I said, I had heard of this theory, but have never taken the time to

see if there have been properly conducted studies and what evidence

they have presented.

I'm glad your friend's daughter is getting better.

This reminds me that I got something from St Jude's hospital for

children that gave statistics on 5-year survival rates in 1962 vs 'now'

(2004 or 2005?) It should give us all some hope at how much progress

had been made in treating so many cancers over the last 45 years:

acute lymphoblastic leukemia 1962: 4% survived 5 years; present: 90%

[This is probably what your friend's daughter has.]

Ewing Sarcoma (a bone cancer) 1962: 5% survived 5 years; present: 65%

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma 1962: 7% survived 5 years; present: 85%

Medulloblastoma (a brain tumor) 1962: 10% survived years; present: 75%

etc.

They have several more types of childhood cancers mentioned.

It is sad that we still have so many children who don't survive 5

years, but look at the progress from 1962. As bad as chemo and

radiation are, we wouldn't have the big increase in survival rates if

these weren't pretty effective as treatments. And similar strides have

been made for most types of breast cancer as well. They now know it's

not a single disease, and they try to tailor the treatments to be the

most effective for that type. And they are searching for new ones all

the time.

One more little aside. I think it wasn't until the 1960s that the FDA

required the drug companies to demonstate not just that the drug

wouldn't kill you (that law was written in the 1930s, I think, after

someone accidentally formulated a cough medicine with ethylene glycol

[anti-freeze] and something like 130 kids died), but that it *actually

helped*. Hence the clinical trials.

Sorry to be playing the statistician again. It's a habit that's hard

for me to break ;-)

Best,

Ann

[Guest guest]

Sorry can't be more specific about this, but I was reading some two year old

issues of Scientific

American, and it turns out the the guy who did the main study on EMRs and its

effect on cellular

development faked his data to keep his grant going. Meaning, that this study,

which entered

popular culture, is wrong. His data actually shows no evidence of EMRs causing

atypical cellular

growth.

On the other hand, if you live near power lines with a step down transformer,

you have a higher

liklihood of being exposed to PCBs, as it is used as fluid insulation to help

the transformers

shed heat (I think - I mean, I know it is there, but I could be wrong as to its

intended purpose).

Anybody know more about this? Haven't got the time today to prowl the net.

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[Guest guest]

>

> Sorry can't be more specific about this, but I was reading some

two year old issues of Scientific

> American, and it turns out the the guy who did the main study on

EMRs and its effect on cellular

> development faked his data to keep his grant going. Meaning, that

this study, which entered

> popular culture, is wrong. His data actually shows no evidence of

EMRs causing atypical cellular

> growth.

If that's true, then that sorry excuse for a researcher (not to

mention human being) deserves to be pilloried and whipped with live

power lines. It can be hard enough to figure out what's really

going on without someone throwing in faked data as well to confuse

things more. And there's all that research money that got wasted not

just on his own study, but on follow-up studies to see if other

scientists got similar results -- money that should have gone toward

checking other possible causes.

Man, people like that make me see red.

Ann

[Guest guest]

Ann,

I agree with you. Let's pelt him with petri dishes.

The main problem seems to be that the scientific community never really got hot

and bothered about

the initial study. The media did.

To the best of my knowledge, there had been no follow up studies to disprove

this guy, so we all

went about thinking that EMRs were bad. His results - ostensibly - were from

actual cells, not

epidemiological data.

Heck, I worry about using my cell phone and the risk of brain cancer. Oh wait, I

had cancer, so

I've really dealt with that whole fear of the unknown thing.

I comfort myself by thinking that as a species, we evolved with neutrinos and

natural radiation

cruising through our tissues. And we are still here.

Bad science, bah!

_________________________________________________________

If that's true, then that sorry excuse for a researcher (not to

mention human being) deserves to be pilloried and whipped with live

power lines. It can be hard enough to figure out what's really

going on without someone throwing in faked data as well to confuse

things more. And there's all that research money that got wasted not

just on his own study, but on follow-up studies to see if other

scientists got similar results -- money that should have gone toward

checking other possible causes.

Man, people like that make me see red.

Ann

>

> Sorry can't be more specific about this, but I was reading some

two year old issues of Scientific

> American, and it turns out the the guy who did the main study on

EMRs and its effect on cellular

> development faked his data to keep his grant going. Meaning, that

this study, which entered

> popular culture, is wrong. His data actually shows no evidence of

EMRs causing atypical cellular

> growth.

Ruffing

Grade 3, Stage IIIA, ER/PR+, HER2 neg, 4.9 cm and 5 nodes positive

Chemo and radiation completed 9/28/06

Mastectomy, no reconstruction

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[Guest guest]

>

> > I comfort myself by thinking that as a species, we evolved with

neutrinos and natural radiation

> cruising through our tissues. And we are still here.

True. We were meant to die from infections and other diseases

before there was enough natural radiation damage to give us

cancer. ;-) And thanks to antibiotics and sanitation we now live

longer. What's the life expectancy in third world countries without

modern medical care? 45 or something? And 50% of kids dying before

the age of 5?

>

> Bad science, bah!

>

It's worse than bad science. He wasn't careless. He was an out-and-

out fraud. He's even worse than the paid-for researchers, because

usually the data they ignore in their studies is still around

somewhere - they just argue it's 'bad data.'

Ann