SHERBURNE – A connection between power lines and cancer is there, says Dr. David Carpenter, but exactly what that link is remains unknown.
“While we found the effects,” said Carpenter, an expert in public health who has done extensive research on the effects of electromagnetic fields created by electricity. “We were never able to find the mechanism as to why magnetic fields cause cancer.”
Since it was announced in March that Albany-based New York Regional Interconnect Inc. was developing plans to build a 400,000-volt direct current transmission line, concerns over its possible negative health effects have traveled throughout the communities along the proposed 200-mile long corridor from Oneida to Orange County. In an effort to educate the public on the issues related to the pending NYRI project, the Upstate Institute at Colgate University brought in Carpenter to speak Monday night at Sherburne-Earlville High School, the first part of a three-part speaker series.
The doctor, who is also the director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at SUNY Albany, reviewed the physical and natural relationship of the human body to magnetic fields. He then cited a compilation of studies completed in the late 1970s and early 80s (during which time he was a part of an analysis of the effects of Marcy South Transmission Line) that concluded, without real reason, that children living near alternating current power lines are twice as likely to develop leukemia than children who do not.
“To this day,” Carpenter told the crowd of roughly 50 in the Sherburne-Earlville High School Auditorium, “there is no rational or logical explanation to this rise in leukemia.”
Even more uncertain is the effect of direct current transmission lines, such as NYRI’s, which Carpenter explains have not really been studied to date.
“Why isn’t the academic community studying the effects of direct current lines?” asked Earlville resident Eve Ann Shwartz, the co-chairperson of the grassroots organization STOP NYRI.
“The funding is almost nil,” Carpenter responded, arguing that government agencies and some academics are “really prejudiced against studying this issue.”
“Why is there that prejudice?” Shwartz further asked.
“Because the questions may be unanswerable,” Carpenter said.
Because there isn’t clear proof, after numerous studies, that power lines or magnetic fields are direct cancer-causing agents, the doctor said it is hard to get experts to continue pursuing the answers, despite the fact there is no proof that power lines are safe.
Upstate Institute Director Ellen Kraly believes that new studies on naturally occurring and synthetic magnetic fields should be reconsidered, because the world itself is evolving and creating different scenarios related to health.
“Academics should be looking at more complex theoretical perspectives,” Kraly said during a question and answer session on Monday. “This world is different, and more chemically complex.”
Carpenter said that burying the lines would significantly decrease if not cancel out the magnetic fields, and that pressuring elected officials and continuing the community action is the only real way to get answers and see changes regarding this issue.
He pointed out that currently, magnetic fields near right of ways are allowed to be 50 times higher than the amount that is found to be associated with increases in cancer.
It’s not just power lines that are believed to put us at risk either, he explained. He added that every day, no matter where we go, we are surrounded by potentially dangerous levels of magnetic fields.
“No one is unexposed, that’s what makes it difficult,” he said, pointing out that many occupations and almost every common appliance could cause harm, noting hair dryers as one of the more hazardous. “The question is; what is the degree of risk?” According to some studies, Alzheimer’s, breast cancer, and Lou Gehrig’s disease have also been found to increase at certain levels of common exposure to magnetic fields.