Nexus - 0228 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Where were the transmitters of commercial radio broadcasting water up onto the beach; then the water runs back down into the stations located? In urban areas, of course, because that is where ocean. Water continually surges back and forth at the shoreline the majority of radio listeners were concentrated! When did com- _ through wave action. Electromagnetic power in the localised field mercial broadcast radio begin? In 1920. By what date did every —_ also surges back and forth in a similar manner. major US city have at least one commercial radio station? At the seashore there may also be an «undertow that carries Probably well before 1925. The early radio stations produced an _ objects caught in it haceig hl emt to sea. This is similar to the radiat- amplitude-modulated signal—that is, they ed electromagnetic field which breaks away were AM stations. Thus, the localised elec- from the source and carries a signal away for- oe fields surrounding a i — stiniaitien cli radio station transmitters are a very good can- : * ie water surging back and fo y wave didate indeed for the mysterious urban haz- ..the localised action at the beach is not normally danger- ardous agent that began elevating the rate of electromagnetic fields | ous, but the undertow is. With electromag- childhood brain cancer in the United States . . netic fields, the reverse seems to be true: the over 60 years ago. surrounding commercial radiated field that carries electromagnetic Just two years ago, the news media trum- | radio station transmitters | power away may not be hazardous, but the peted the fact that some users of the handheld od localised field where electromagnetic power cellular telephones with the transmitter in the area very go simply surges back and forth is hazardous. hand wots developing brn cao behin | Ganidigiate indeed fOr the |, vl ie canted slecromagnatic wave e ear, on the s ‘ : . z- the phone was typically positioned, at exactly mysterious urban what Ts — is eciat: a —. tie pee mn wo icy VO 20S ncicatng ha cine This experience is very similar to that of the began elevating the rate poses any cancer hazard, although, if the sta- - i i fficiently high- d, such Pierre = = em een fic radar guns had irradiated their bodies for cancer in the United able evidence points only to the localised long periods of time. States over 60 years ago field near a transmitter as being hazardous. All three sets of data—the experience of Y 5 4 Of course, the temporal coincidence law-enforcement officers with traffic radar between the development of commercial guns, of cellular telephone users, and the data broadcast radio in the early 1920s and the on childhood brain cancer since 1920—seem zn rather sudden increase in childhood brain to indicate that being in the near field of a transmitter of alte cancer incidence thereafter docs not prove that the electromagnetic frequency radiation, including microwave radiation, for long _ fields around radio transmitters caused the observed rise in child- periods of time is hazardous to human health and may result in _ hood brain cancer. But timing can be used to rule out other possi- the development of some form of cancer! ble candidates. For example, it is most unlikely that electric When one is in the near field of a source, one is exposed to the = power-lines could have caused the observed rise in childhood localised field. For those readers who may be having some diffi- brain cancer because major American cities such as New York culty with the concepts of localised and radiated fields, and who _ were electrified before the beginning of the twentieth century! It may be confusing them with near and far fields, let me draw an _ seems unlikely that electricity was initially innocuous, remained analogy with the seashore. At the beach, there are waves that push _so for decades and then suddenly became harmful in the 1920s! Historical trend in death rates from cancer of the brain and other parts of the nervous system in white male children (0 to 14 years of age) in the USA from 1930 to 1955. Notice the rapid increase in the decade prior to 1940, White female children exhibit a very similar curve (not shown). The rapid rise in brain cancer death rate for white children follows by about 10 years the rapid growth of commercial radio broadcasting during the 1920s, These transmitters, and the majority of the white population, were located in urban areas. Similar death-rate curves for | non-white children (not shown) display a rise that is delayed by about 15 years, compared to the curves for white children; the sharp rise coincides with the rural-to- urban shift of this population. Presumably an agent that entered most US urban environments not long before 1930 is responsible for the striking rise in childhood brain cancer death rates that took place between 1930 and 1955. WHITE MALES 0-14 1930 1935 1940 1945 YEAR 1950 1955 WHITE MALES 0-14 YEAR 38 ¢ NEXUS OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1995