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. 2006 Oct;114(10):1532-7.
doi: 10.1289/ehp.8977.

Public health impact of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields

Leeka Kheifets  1 , Abdelmonem A Afifi, Riti Shimkhada
Affiliations

Public health impact of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields

Leeka Kheifets et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2006 Oct.

Abstract

Introduction: The association between exposure to extremely low-frequency electric and magnetic fields (ELF) and childhood leukemia has led to the classification of magnetic fields by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a "possible human carcinogen." This association is regarded as the critical effect in risk assessment. Creating effective policy in light of widespread exposure and the undisputed value of safe, reliable, and economic electricity to society is difficult and requires estimates of the potential public health impact and associated uncertainties.

Objectives: Although a causal relationship between magnetic fields and childhood leukemia has not been established, we present estimates of the possible pubic health impact using attributable fractions to provide a potentially useful input into policy analysis under different scenarios.

Methods: Using ELF exposure distributions from various countries and dose-response functions from two pooled analyses, we calculate country-specific and worldwide estimates of attributable fractions (AFs) and attributable cases.

Results: Even given a wide range of assumptions, we find that the AF remains < 10%, with point estimates ranging from < 1% to about 4%. For small countries with low exposure, the number of attributable cases is less than one extra case per year. Worldwide the range is from 100 to 2,400 cases possibly attributable to ELF exposure.

Conclusion: The fraction of childhood leukemia cases possibly attributable to ELF exposure across the globe appears to be small. There remain, however, a number of uncertainties in these AF estimates, particularly in the exposure distributions.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Upper, lower, and point estimates of AF, based on arithmetic mean exposure of ELF. Numbers in parentheses indicate multiple studies for one country. Figure is based on exposure distributions for specific countries and estimate of effect from pooled analysis by Greenland et al. (2000); Japan: Kabuto et al. (2006); Korea: Yang et al. (2004)); Belgium: Decat et al. (2005); Germany (1): Brix et al. (2001); Germany (2): Schuz et al. (2001); United Kingdom: UKCCS (1999); Canada: McBride et al. (1999); United States (1): EMF Rapid Program (1998); United States (2): Linet et al. (1997). Vertical bars indicate upper and lower AF estimates.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Upper, lower, and point estimates of AF, based on geometric mean exposure of ELF. Numbers in parentheses indicate multiple studies for one country. Figure is based on exposure distributions for specific countries and estimate of effect from pooled analysis by Ahlbom et al. (2000): Belgium: Decat et al. (2005); Germany: Michaelis et al. (1998); United Kingdom: UKCSS (1999); Canada: McBride et al. (1999); United States (1): EMF Rapid Program (1998); United States (2): Linet et al. (1997). Vertical bars indicate upper and lower AF estimates.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Estimated number and range of worldwide and regional cases of childhood leukemia among children < 14 years of age that are possibly attributable to EMF arithmetic mean exposure > 0.3 μT (and the corresponding derived 95% CI). Regional range is based on the lowest level and highest exposure levels from the countries in a given region. Where there was no information from any countries in the region, the overall lowest and highest exposure levels were used.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Estimated number and range of worldwide and regional cases of childhood leukemia among children < 14 years of age that are possibly attributable to EMF geometric mean exposure ≥ 0.4 μT (and the corresponding derived 95% CI). Regional range is based on the lowest level and highest exposure levels from the countries in a given region. Where there was no information from any countries in the region, the overall lowest and highest exposure levels were used.
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