Among the 10 reasons listed by the Report, the authors concluded that:
- different scientists use different measurements to determine the existence of any proof;
- some scientists continue to insist that every study should achieve the same results;
- some scientists are only looking at short-term and acute effects, which do not always tell the whole story; and
- vested interests appear to have a substantial influence on the whole issue under debate.
Industry pressures
This is an exceedingly high-stakes game, one that goes way beyond deciding whether power lines should be buried under the ground or not. If governments and power industries
accept the growing epidemiological evidence that EMFs cause cancer—not to mention any other chronic and degenerative diseases—then there will need to be a massive change in
the way we live our lives.
EMFs are emitted from the mains electricity and all the wiring in our homes—powering everything from microwave ovens to Wi-Finetworks—but also, and more significantly, from
mobile phones and mobile-phone masts.
The upshot of all this is that, while it is a matter of degrees and being reasonable, any admission from our health guardians that EMFs are causing cancer would have major
effects on the world’s economy—not to mention our present taken—for granted
comfy lifestyles. It is also known that the power industry, like the drug industry, recruits and richly rewards ‘friendly’ scientists who are always on hand to deride any research
that links EMFs to cancer and other diseases. Indeed, the power industry openly—but sometimes covertly—funds research that invariably discovers no association between
EMFs and illness.
This is part and parcel of the damage limitation that began in the 1960s, when field pioneers such as Drs Ross Adey, Milton Zaret and Robert Becker started investigating the effects of EMFs on humans. Dr Zaret was among the first to discover that EMF radiation, such as
emitted by microwaves, is biologically harmful and can cause conditions such as cataracts. Yet, in the course of his work, his research funds were stopped. Dr Becker worked for the
US Navy, and his brief was to assess the health impact of a submarine ELF communications system. His study concluded that the health of significant segments of the American
population was at risk from 60-Hz power lines. But when the State of New York was planning the construction of 10 high-power lines, the Navy denied that Becker’s work existed, so
the high-power lines were erected. Becker said afterwards: “The way science is currently funded andevaluated, we are learning more and more about less and less, and science
is becoming our enemy instead of our friend.”
Dr Adey, who died in 2004, worked on secret CIA projects in the 1970s that looked into the impact of EMFs on people’s mental health. Since then, other researchers have found that these energy fields can cause depression: indeed, several noted that suicide levels were far higher among people who lived near power lines.
In 1992, Adey reported that there was "very little doubt" that EMFs affect the immune system, interfere with fetal development and cause birth abnormalities, damage healthy cell growth, encourage tumour formation, and affect the central nervous system and the brain. In addition, as he said on BBC Radio Scotland on January 10, 1992, “This work is being carried out in
many laboratories worldwide so that the old fiction that this research describes uncorroborated experiments is no longer true.”