Does Electrical Workers EMF exposure pass Californias 30% formula for Public Safety?

At the  Pacific Grove City Council special meeting on March 9th, one member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Local 1245) spent less than 3 minutes to state that because they had studied Electromagnetic Field (EMF) exposure of their high power line workers and claims it is safe for them, that smart meters are safe as well. “To date, scientific studies have not identified or confirmed negative health to radio frequencies produced by smart meters," he said.

We get the impression that all is hunky dory working around EMF's, and those that think differently must be nuts.  In fact many EMF studies do show adverse health effects among electrical workers, including power line workers; and studies do show adverse health effects among living things at 900Mhz exposure to the non-ionizing, pulsing microwave EMF's at the exact frequency as smart meters. How do we know who to believe?  How do we as individuals gauge these conflicting studies for public safety?

The State of California uses the 30% formula.  If there is a 30% chance of harm to public health, then they will error on the side of caution and develop public safety policy accordingly.  That's a pretty low threshold, but better be safe than sorry.

After reading the below article, ask yourself if EMF exposure to electric workers meets or surpasses the 30% formula. Then compare what you think to what our IBEW Local 1245 representative states as "safe."
Note he did not say relatively safe, he said safe.

The information below is found at http://www.lessemf.com/pamphlet.html.  After reading it, ask yourself if you would really feel "safe" exposed to EMF's to the degree electrical workers are? 




+++++

Q. Do electrical workers have higher risks of cancer?

A. Several studies have reported increased cancer risks for jobs involving work around electrical equipment. To date, it is not clear whether these risks are caused by EMFs or by other factors. A report published in 1982 by Dr. Samuel Milham was one of the first to suggest that electrical workers have a higher risk of leukemia than do workers in other occupations. The Milham study was based on death certificates from Washington state and included workers in 10 occupations assumed to have elevated exposure to EMFs. A subsequent study by Milham, published in 1990, reported elevated levels of leukemia and lymphoma among workers in aluminum smelters, which use very large amounts of electrical power.


About 50 studies have now reported statistically significant increased risks for several types of cancer in occupational groups presumed to have elevated exposure to EMFs. Relative risk levels in these studies are mostly less than 2, and the possible influence of other factors such as chemicals has not been ruled out. At least 30 other studies did not find any significant cancer risks in electrical workers. Most of the earlier occupational studies did not include actual measurements of EMF exposure on the job. Instead, they used "electrical" job titles as indicators of assumed elevated exposure to EMFs. Recent studies, however, have included extensive EMF exposure assessments. 

A report published in 1992 by Dr. Joseph Bowman and colleagues provided some information about actual EMF exposures of various electrical workers. As shown in the table below, electrical workers in Los Angeles and Seattle did have higher EMF exposures than non-electrical workers. 

For this study, the category "electrical workers" included electrical engineering technicians, electrical engineers, electricians, power line and cable workers, power station operators, telephone line workers, TV and radio repairmen, and welders and flame cutters.

EMF Exposures of Workers in Los Angeles & Seattle
Job Type	Mean Electric Field		Mean Magnetic Field
	Los Angeles	Seattle	Los Angeles	Seattle
Electrical:	19.0 V/m	51.2 V/m	9.6 mG	27.6 mG
Non-Electrical:	5.5 V/m	10.6 V/m	1.7 mG	4.1 mG

Source: Bowman et al. 1992

In a further analysis published in July 1994, Dr. Stephanie London, Bowman, and others found a weakly positive trend for increased leukemia risk in relation to exposure to magnetic fields among electrical workers in Los Angeles County. These results were consistent with findings from studies based on job title alone that electrical workers may be at slightly increased risk of leukemia.


A 1993 study (Sahl et al.) of 36,000 electrical workers at a large utility in California found no consistent evidence of an association between measured magnetic fields and cancer. Some elevated risks for lymphoma and leukemia were observed, but they were not statistically significant. A 1992 study of Swedish workers (Floderus et al.) found an association between average EMF exposure and chronic lymphocytic leukemia but not acute myeloid leukemia. There was some evidence of increasing risk with increasing exposure. The Floderus study also reported an increase in brain tumors among younger men whose work involved relatively high magnetic field exposure. 

Results of a major study of electrical workers in Canada and France were reported in early 1994. The research team, led by Dr. Gilles Theriault, looked at 4151 cancer cases in 223,292 workers from two utilities in Canada and one in France. Workers with more than the median cumulative magnetic field exposure (31mG) had a significantly higher (up to three times higher) risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia. Workers who had the greatest exposures to magnetic fields had twelve times the expected rate of astrocytomas (a type of brain tumor), but according to the authors, this finding "suffered from serious statistical limits" and was based on a small number of cases (five) in the highest exposure category. In the analysis of median cumulative magnetic field exposure, no significant elevated risks were found for the other 29 types of cancer studied.* 


There were inconsistencies in results among the three utilities and no clear indication of a dose-response trend. The authors concluded, therefore, that their results did not provide definitive evidence that magnetic fields were the cause of the elevated risks found in leukemia and brain cancer. However, they observed as "noteworthy" the fact that despite the enormous number of analyses done, the only two types of cancer for which a significant association with EMF was found (leukemia and brain cancer) were among the three for which an association had been hypothesized, based on previous studies.


In another major study involving more than 138,000 utility workers (Savitz et al. 1995), the authors concluded that the results "do not support an association between occupational magnetic field exposure and leukemia, but do suggest a link to brain cancer." 

*A later analysis reported an association between exposure to short bursts of extremely high magnetic fields and increased risk of lung cancer.