Word: powering
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...scientists dismissed any suggestion that such forces might be harmful, primarily because they are so extraordinarily weak. The ELF magnetic field generated by a video terminal measures only a few milligauss, or about one- hundredth the strength of the earth's own magnetic field. The electric fields surrounding a power line can be as high as 10 kilovolts per meter, but the corresponding field induced in human cells will be only about 1 millivolt per meter. This is far less than the electric fields that the cells themselves generate...
Doubts about weak, so-called nonionizing radiation began to grow in 1979, when a study of cancer rates among Colorado schoolchildren found that those who lived near power lines had two to three times as great a chance of developing cancer. The link seemed so unlikely that when power companies paid to have the original study replicated, most scientists expected the results to be negative. In fact, the subsequent study supported the original findings, which have since been buttressed by reports showing increased cancer rates among electrical workers...
...week a study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reports a steep rise in brain-cancer rates over the past dozen years. If the increased incidence of such cancers could be linked to electromagnetism in the home or workplace, liability suits could clog the courts. Property values near power lines and electric substations are plummeting. If the utilities have to bury or reroute those systems, the cost of doing business could take a sharp jump...
...there is a difference between a smoker who ignores the Surgeon General's warning and someone who develops cancer passively just by being born into the electronic age. People live near power lines and work with their noses in computer display screens because those things are part and parcel of the ( times. Everyone deserves at the very least a rough sense of what danger such exposure brings...
More study is essential. The bulk of the research being conducted on the health effects of electromagnetic radiation -- at a cost of some $10 million a year -- is paid for by the Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute, neither of which is a disinterested party. The EPA used to conduct its own studies, but funding for its research was cut off by the Reagan Administration. Perhaps the best candidate for new funding would be the National Institutes for Health. The research should examine not only the effects of ELF fields but also those of less-studied radiation...