NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS,
2101 CONSTITUTION AVENUE NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20418
The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report was prepared under Cooperative Agreement DE-FC01-94CE34101 between the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Department of Energy.
International Standard Book Number: 0-309-06543-7
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Copyright 1999 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE RESEARCH ACTIVITIES COMPLETED UNDER THE ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 1992
JOHN F. AHEARNE (Chairman), Director,
Sigma Xi Center, Research Triangle Park, NC and Duke University, Durham, NC
EDWIN L. CARSTENSEN, Arthur Gould Yates Professor of Engineering, Emeritus,
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
RAYMOND L. ERIKSON,
Biological Laboratories, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
JAMES F. HOBURG,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
MAURICE S. FOX,
Lester Wolfe Professor of Molecular Biology. Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
WALTER R. ROGERS,
University of Texas School of Public Health and School of Medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
JAN A. J. STOLWIJK,
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
THOMAS S. TENFORDE, Chief Scientist,
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
EVAN B. DOUPLE, Director,
Board on Radiation Effects Research
RICK JOSTES, Study Director
ISAF AL-NABULSI, Visiting Scientist
PEGGY JOHNSON, Project Assistant (until August 18, 1998)
ERIC TRUETT, Project Assistant
DORIS E. TAYLOR, Administrative Staff Assistant
NORMAN GROSSBLATT, Editor
BOARD ON RADIATION EFFECTS RESEARCH
R. J. MICHAEL FRY (Chairman),
Oak Ridge, TN*
S. JAMES ADELSTEIN,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA†
VALERIE BERAL,
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
EDWARD R. EPP,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA†
HELEN H. EVANS,
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH?
MAURICE S. FOX,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
LYNN W. JELINSKI,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
WILLIAM F. MORGAN,
University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA†
WILLIAM J. SCHULL,
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX
DANIEL O. STRAM,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
H. RODNEY WITHERS,
UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
EVAN B. DOUPLE, Director,
RICK JOSTES, Senior Program Officer
STEVE SIMON, Senior Program Officer
ISAF AL-NABULSI, Visiting Scientist
CATHERINE S. BERKLEY, Administrative Associate
KAREN BRYANT, Project Assistant (until October 23, 1998)
PEGGY JOHNSON, Project Assistant (until August 18, 1998)
ERIC TRUETT, Project Assistant
BRIDGET EDMONDS, Project Assistant
DORIS E. TAYLOR, Administrative Staff Assistant
COMMISSION ON LIFE SCIENCES
MICHAEL T. CLEGG (Chair),
College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Riverside, CA
FREDERICK R. ANDERSON,
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Washington, DC
JOHN C. BAILAR III,
McGill University, Montreal, CA
PAUL BERG,
Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA
JOANNA BURGER,
Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ
SHARON L. DUNWOODY,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
DAVID S. EISENBERG,
University of California, Los Angeles, CA
JOHN L. EMMERSON,
Indianapolis, IN
NEAL L. FIRST,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
DAVID J. GALAS,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
ARTURO GOMEZ-POMPA,
University of California, Riverside, CA
COREY S. GOODMAN,
University of California, Berkeley, CA
HENRY W. HEIKKINEN,
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
BARBARA S. HULKA,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
HANS J. KENDE,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
CYNTHIA J. KENYON,
University of California, San Francisco, CA
MARGARET G. KIDWELL,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
BRUCE R. LEVIN,
Emory University, Atlanta, GA
OLGA F. LINARES,
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Miami, FL
DAVID M. LIVINGSTON,
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
DONALD R. MATTSION,
March of Dimes, White Plains, NY
ELLIOT M. MEYEROWITZ,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
ROBERT T. PAINE,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA
ROBERT R. SEDEROFF,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
ROBERT R. SOKAL,
State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY
CHARLES F. STEVENS,
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA
SHIRLEY M. TILGHMAN,
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
JOHN L. VANDEBERG,
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, San Antonio, TX
RAYMOND L. WHITE,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
PAUL GILMAN, Executive Director (until September 30, 1998).
MYRON UMAN, Acting Executive Director
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PREFACE
Since the 1970s, concerns about health hazards associated with electric and magnetic fields from power lines and from workplace, school, and household use of electricity have led to many studies and continued controversy about whether adverse health effects occur. In the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (Public Law 102–486), Congress authorized a focused national research program to study the possible health effects of exposure to low-intensity, 60-hertz electric and magnetic fields. In response to this legislation and at the request of the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Research Council established a committee under the Board on Radiation Effects Research (BRER) in the Commission on Life Sciences (CLS) to aid in its review of the power-frequency magnetic field research activities completed under the Electric and Magnetic Fields Research and Public Information Dissemination (EMF-RAPID) program that was authorized by the Energy Policy Act. The Research Council's Committee to Review the Research Activities Completed Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT) was asked to review the EMF-RAPID program implemented by DOE and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and research strategies suggested by other federal and nonfederal groups.
The Research Council committee consists of persons experienced in bioelectromagnetics, biophysics, electrical engineering, epidemiology, in vivo animal research, toxicology, neurobehavioral and neuroendocrine science, molecular biology and genetics, mechanisms of cancer induction, and risk assessment. One member of the committee was also a member of the Research Council committee on the Possible Effects of Electromagnetic Fields on Biologic Systems, which was charged with the review of the research literature related to possible adverse health effects of power-frequency magnetic fields. The current committee also includes a former president and a former member of the board of directors of the Bioelectromagnetics Society.
The committee's study was conducted under the general guidance of BRER and CLS. The Committee has had access to documents provided by DOE and NIEHS that describe the EMF-RAPID program, 11 completed engineering reports, draft project summaries of 61 EMF-RAPID-funded projects, three reports on EMF-RAPID science review symposia, the NIEHS working-group report, and two booklets published as part of the EMF-RAPID information dissemination program.
This is the second and final report of the Research Council committee's review. The first (interim) report was produced by a committee, three of whose members are members of this committee. The committee's work was aided substantially by the cooperation of Imre Gyuk of DOE and Gary Boorman, Naomi Bernheim, Michael Galvin, Christopher Portier, and Mary Wolfe of NIEHS. Its report could not have been completed without the untiring effort of Rick Jostes, who, in addition to being responsible for keeping the committee on track and dealing with the federal agencies, contributed his own insights as a researcher in this field. He was well assisted by Peggy Johnson, Eric Truett, and Isaf Al-Nabulsi of the BRER staff.
John F. Ahearne
Chair, Committee to Review the Research Activities Completed Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
REVIEWER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise in accordance with procedures for reviewing NRC and IOM reports approved by the NRC's Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the NRC in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The content of the final report is the responsibility of the NRC and the study committee, and not the responsibility of the reviewers. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals, who are neither officials nor employees of the NRC, for their participation in the review of this report:
Robert K. Adair, Yale University
Leeka Kheifets, Electric Power Research Institute
J. Ross MacDonald, Chapel Hill, NC
John E. Moulder, Medical College of Wisconsin
Richard Saunders, National Radiological Protection Board, UK
Herman P. Schwan, The University of Pennsylvania
Charles F. Stevens, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
While the individuals listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, it must be emphasized that responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authorizing committee and the NRC.