BMJ  2005;331:634-635 (17 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7517.634-a

Letter

Childhood cancer and power lines

Results do not support causal role for electromagnetic fields

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—Draper et al present findings on the relation between childhood cancer and the distance of birth residence to high voltage power lines.¹ The study's strengths include the large number of case children and unbiased control selection. However, the findings are inconsistent with another UK study, in which neither proximity nor estimates of dose to extremely low frequency magnetic fields from power lines showed any relation with childhood leukaemia.²

The strength of the findings is based on trend statistics, with the reference group resident over 600 m from the lines. This has no sound scientific basis for inferring associations with extremely low frequency magnetic fields, as beyond 200 m their contribution to exposure can be considered to be "background."³ No plausible biological evidence currently links magnetic field exposure to childhood leukaemia. Despite this, the paper quantifies the likely number of cases "associated" with high voltage lines where the main exposure is . . . [Full text of this article]

s.j.hepworth@leeds.ac.uk

Paediatric Epidemiology Group, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LN

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