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Does power corrupt?
From: Canadian
Globe and Mail: Tuesday, March 28. 2006: MARTIN ITTELSTAEDT
Kevin Byrne is a man in the prime of his life who feared he
had an old man's problems. Last summer, he was devastated by chronic back
pain and thought his hips were about to give out.
"I'm thinking, gee, I'm 47 years old and I'm going to need hip replacements
already," he said.
The hip pain was the beginning of a strange personal odyssey for Mr. Byrne,
a technical writer who lives in Newcastle, a bedroom community east of
Toronto. He is now convinced his ailment wasn't a sign of premature aging,
but an allergy to one of modern society's ubiquitous substances:
electricity.
No one knows how many people are sensitive to electricity. Scientific debate
is intense over whether the condition exists or is a figment of people's
imagination. Some estimates place the number afflicted at a handful out of
every million. Others view it as more common but still a tad unusual,
perhaps a few individuals out of every thousand.
Mr. Byrne counts himself among those unlucky few. He began researching the
topic when a neighbour expressed the belief that electricity was dangerous.
In an act of desperation brought on by constant pain, he did something he
initially thought was off-the-wall. He spent $1,000 on filters that, much
like surge protectors on a computer, clean up fluctuations and surges in the
electricity flowing in the wires around his home.
"When you're in a lot of pain, you'll do just about anything. So I was sort
of grasping at non-medical straws," he said. "I didn't think they would
work, to tell you the truth. I thought I was probably wasting my money."
But within a couple of days, after months of pain for which his doctor could
find no cause, he started feeling fine again. "I said to my wife, 'This has
got to be the placebo effect,' " he said, referring to the well-known
medical phenomenon of patients reporting that they are cured of illnesses
after being given a sugar pill doctors suggest will help them.
Mr. Byrne also noticed another odd health effect after he cleaned up his
power, convincing him that electricity was at the root of his problems. Both
he and his wife suddenly began to sleep more soundly and his dreams became
"incredibly real and very vivid."
Stories such as Mr. Byrne's are not isolated tales. In fact, they're
becoming increasingly common, rising in lockstep with homes filled to the
brim with electronic gadgets and the proliferation of wireless technologies.
Symptoms of electrical sensitivity include the joint pain Mr. Byrne
experienced, but also a bewildering array of other common problems most
everyone feels at one time or another, such as fatigue, headaches, poor
sleep quality with frequent wakefulness, ringing in the ears, depression,
difficulty remembering things, and skin rashes. The list of symptoms has
created speculation that some cases of sick building syndrome, where people
working in buildings complain of nausea and headaches, might be due to
electrical sensitivities.
Madga Havas, an associate professor at the Environmental Studies Department
of Trent University who is an expert on the health claims about electricity,
says she receives "almost a call a day" from people who say electricity is
making them ill and they can't find help in the medical system. "It's not
just from Canada. It's usually from the States as well," she says.
She thinks the condition is more widespread than commonly thought, and
speculates that for some people, exposure to electricity causes
physiological stress, producing symptoms of tiredness, difficulty
concentrating and poor sleep.
The possibility of such a widespread health impact from electricity is
greeted with skepticism in the electricity industry, where such an effect
would have wide-ranging consequences.
"We don't have support to suggest that there is electrosensitivity in
members of the population," says Jack Sahl, a manager of safety and
environmental issues at Southern California Edison, a large U.S. electricity
provider.
The industry position has been bolstered by studies showing that most of
those who say they have allergies to electricity are unable consistently to
detect the presence of electric currents in laboratory experiments.
Medical authorities and scientific researchers have consequently been
baffled over these wide-ranging claims of ill health, not only in Canada and
the United States but in Britain and other European countries. In Sweden,
the electrically sensitive are so numerous they have established their own
self-help and lobby group.
Those with the condition bristle at suggestions their symptoms are
imaginary. "This is not psychosomatic at all. . . . We're not delusional,"
says Susan Stankavich, who lives near Albany, N.Y., and says her problems
developed after a large cellphone tower was erected near her home. She's had
debilitating headaches, among other symptoms, and can barely tolerate being
under fluorescent lights.
Reacting to this rising tide of claims of a new illness, the World Health
Organization issued a fact sheet in December on the allergies, which it
dubbed "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" and likened it to multiple
chemical sensitivities.
The WHO says the "symptoms are certainly real" and "can be a disabling
problem for the affected individual."
Reports about sensitivity to electricity began with the introduction of
computers, predating the recent spread of Wi-Fi and cellphone towers, which
release a related but more powerful type of electromagnetic energy than that
produced around electric wires.
There have been long-running concerns about the possible health effects of
electricity because it is a source of both electric and magnetic fields,
invisible lines of force that surround all power lines and any
power-consuming device, from the lowly kitchen toaster to a computer.
Electric fields are always present near power wires and appliances, even
when devices are turned off, but magnetic fields are generated only when
devices are on.
The nerves in living things work on electrical impulses. So do other
biological processes, such as the voltages in hearts detected using
electrocardiographs. This has given rise to worries that man-made
electricity fields, to which humans were never exposed before the modern
era, might be biologically active, just like chemical pollutants.
The WHO has been looking at electrical sensitivity as one aspect of a larger
investigation into the health effects of the cocktail of electromagnetic
fields enveloping people in modern societies via everything from power lines
to cellphones. It says that exposure to electromagnetic fields represents
"one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences, about
which there is anxiety and speculation spreading."
Until now, most of the medical researchers looking at electricity and health
have searched for links to cancer, rather than the fatigue-related symptoms
the electrically sensitive claim.
The cancer research has linked childhood leukemia to power-line magnetic
fields. About 5 per cent of the U.S. population is regularly exposed to
fields of the strength associated with leukemia in children, a percentage
that is probably similar in Canada. For adult leukemia and brain tumours,
some studies have found links to electricity, as they have with Lou Gehrig's
disease, but the research is less conclusive than that for childhood
leukemia.
Richard Stevens, an epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health
Center, has been studying electricity for nearly two decades, and first
advanced the hypothesis that the use of electricity is a factor behind the
rise in some cancer rates in developed countries. He says there is strong
evidence linking the use of night lighting to cancer because exposure to
light at night disrupts people's production of the hormone melatonin.
But he's unsure what impact the fields around electric wiring and devices
might be having. Some studies have found that magnetic fields suppress
melatonin in animals, something that might explain the allergy-like
symptoms, but this effect hasn't been observed in humans. "Whether or not
magnetic fields have any effect at all, I do not know," Dr. Stevens says.
The allergy-like symptoms are a far different medical condition than the
cancers Dr. Stevens studies, and some researchers are speculating that a
possible culprit is the recent deterioration in the quality of electricity
flowing in power wires.
Power quality is a well-known problem in the utility business, caused by the
proliferation of computers, lighting dimmer switches, energy efficient
bulbs, and other modern electronic gadgets. These new devices cause a more
complicated use pattern for electricity than old-fashioned items such as
incandescent bulbs, producing negative feedback involving high-frequency
peaks, harmonics and other noise on electric wiring.
The way to picture the quality effect is to imagine that electricity is like
water flowing in a pipe. An incandescent bulb uses electricity steadily,
just like an open tap allows a constant flow into the sink. Computers and
other modern devices use power in variable amounts, similar to turning the
tap on and off, or any setting in between, causing water pipes to clang.
This deterioration in power quality has been going on for years and would
have likely escaped public notice, except that when home computers became
popular in the 1990s they would frequently crash or malfunction because of
it.
The change in power quality means more variable electromagnetic fields, and
possibly more biologically active ones, are associated with electricity than
there used to be. This is a possible explanation for the rise in
electrosensitivity complaints in the view of Denis Henshaw, a professor at
the University of Bristol in Britain, who is an international authority on
the health effects of power transmission lines.
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He says that if electricity were flowing in a
constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the
interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for
people to get used to. "We just don't get to adapt to these because they
don't have any special pattern to them," he said. "There is no proof of
this, it's just an opinion."
In Canada, Dr. Havas has been investigating whether the deterioration in
power quality has led to sensitivity. To this end, she's been installing
filters that clean up the interference on electrical wires to see if people
notice.
In 2003, she installed filters in a Toronto private school where a student
was electrically sensitive for a six-week test, three weeks with the devices
and three weeks without them. Half of the teachers who responded to her
questionnaire said they felt health improvements, such as being able to
concentrate better and feeling less tired, when the filters were in place.
Even more unusual, the teachers, who were not told what the research was
about, reported that 60 per cent of their classes showed improvements in
student behaviour when the filters were installed.
Based on this finding, Dr. Havas estimates that perhaps half of the
population may have some sensitivity to electricity.
In another test, she installed filters in the homes of people with multiple
sclerosis, a disease that might be reactive to electricity because it is
associated with poor sheathing on nerves. Brad Blumbergs, 29, says his MS
improved so much last year that he could walk without shaking and could even
run again. "It allows me to retire my cane," he said. "It hasn't cured me,
but my symptoms are a percentage of what they used to be," Mr. Blumbergs
said.
Dr. Havas has presented some of these findings at scientific conferences on
electrosensitivity, but the work hasn't appeared in the gold standard of
research, the peer-reviewed scientific journals that would confer more
legitimacy on the results.
The utility industry's Mr. Sahl is skeptical about efforts to improve power
quality, which generally cost about $1,000 to handle one home, and calls
them a "waste of money."
He agrees that the action may make some people feel better, but only because
they're affected by the power of suggestion and not by the power of
electricity. "I hate to be blunt about it, but there is this
well-established effect in science and we've studied it over and over and
it's called the placebo effect."
That doesn't ring true to Mr. Byrne. He says his sensitivity might have been
prompted by his decision last year to conserve energy by replacing much of
his home's simple incandescent lighting with high-efficiency compact
fluorescent bulbs, some brands of which cause the power-quality problem.
He's become so convinced that electricity can make people sick that he's set
up a website, offering tips to fellow sufferers on how to alleviate their
symptoms, such as urging them to throw out their dimmer switches and
limiting exposures to electronic gadgets. When it comes to electricity, Mr.
Byrne says, "I think people should automatically begin changing their
lifestyles."
The nerves in living things work on
electrical impulses. So do other biological processes, such as the voltages
in hearts detected using electrocardiographs. This has given rise to worries
that man-made electricity fields, to which humans were never exposed before
the modern era, might be biologically active, just like chemical pollutants.
The WHO has been looking at electrical sensitivity as one aspect of a larger
investigation into the health effects of the cocktail of electromagnetic
fields enveloping people in modern societies via everything from power lines
to cellphones. It says that exposure to electromagnetic fields represents
"one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences, about
which there is anxiety and speculation spreading."
Until now, most of the medical researchers looking at electricity and health
have searched for links to cancer, rather than the fatigue-related symptoms
the electrically sensitive claim.
The cancer research has linked childhood leukemia to power-line magnetic
fields. About 5 per cent of the U.S. population is regularly exposed to
fields of the strength associated with leukemia in children, a percentage
that is probably similar in Canada. For adult leukemia and brain tumours,
some studies have found links to electricity, as they have with Lou Gehrig's
disease, but the research is less conclusive than that for childhood
leukemia.
Richard Stevens, an epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health
Center, has been studying electricity for nearly two decades, and first
advanced the hypothesis that the use of electricity is a factor behind the
rise in some cancer rates in developed countries. He says there is strong
evidence linking the use of night lighting to cancer because exposure to
light at night disrupts people's production of the hormone melatonin.
But he's unsure what impact the fields around electric wiring and devices
might be having. Some studies have found that magnetic fields suppress
melatonin in animals, something that might explain the allergy-like
symptoms, but this effect hasn't been observed in humans. "Whether or not
magnetic fields have any effect at all, I do not know," Dr. Stevens says.
The allergy-like symptoms are a far different medical condition than the
cancers Dr. Stevens studies, and some researchers are speculating that a
possible culprit is the recent deterioration in the quality of electricity
flowing in power wires.
Power quality is a well-known problem in the utility business, caused by the
proliferation of computers, lighting dimmer switches, energy efficient
bulbs, and other modern electronic gadgets. These new devices cause a more
complicated use pattern for electricity than old-fashioned items such as
incandescent bulbs, producing negative feedback involving high-frequency
peaks, harmonics and other noise on electric wiring.
The way to picture the quality effect is to imagine that electricity is like
water flowing in a pipe. An incandescent bulb uses electricity steadily,
just like an open tap allows a constant flow into the sink. Computers and
other modern devices use power in variable amounts, similar to turning the
tap on and off, or any setting in between, causing water pipes to clang.
This deterioration in power quality has been going on for years and would
have likely escaped public notice, except that when home computers became
popular in the 1990s they would frequently crash or malfunction because of
it.
The change in power quality means more variable electromagnetic fields, and
possibly more biologically active ones, are associated with electricity than
there used to be. This is a possible explanation for the rise in
electrosensitivity complaints in the view of Denis Henshaw, a professor at
the University of Bristol in Britain, who is an international authority on
the health effects of power transmission lines.
He says that if electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's
bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern
devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to.
"We just don't get to adapt to these because they don't have any special
pattern to them," he said. "There is no proof of this, it's just an
opinion."
In Canada, Dr. Havas has been investigating whether the deterioration in
power quality has led to sensitivity. To this end, she's been installing
filters that clean up the interference on electrical wires to see if people
notice.
In 2003, she installed filters in a Toronto private school where a student
was electrically sensitive for a six-week test, three weeks with the devices
and three weeks without them. Half of the teachers who responded to her
questionnaire said they felt health improvements, such as being able to
concentrate better and feeling less tired, when the filters were in place.
Even more unusual, the teachers, who were not told what the research was
about, reported that 60 per cent of their classes showed improvements in
student behaviour when the filters were installed.
Based on this finding, Dr. Havas estimates that perhaps half of the
population may have some sensitivity to electricity.
In another test, she installed filters in the homes of people with multiple
sclerosis, a disease that might be reactive to electricity because it is
associated with poor sheathing on nerves. Brad Blumbergs, 29, says his MS
improved so much last year that he could walk without shaking and could even
run again. "It allows me to retire my cane," he said. "It hasn't cured me,
but my symptoms are a percentage of what they used to be," Mr. Blumbergs
said.
Dr. Havas has presented some of these findings at scientific conferences on
electrosensitivity, but the work hasn't appeared in the gold standard of
research, the peer-reviewed scientific journals that would confer more
legitimacy on the results.
The utility industry's Mr. Sahl is skeptical about efforts to improve power
quality, which generally cost about $1,000 to handle one home, and calls
them a "waste of money."
He agrees that the action may make some people feel better, but only because
they're affected by the power of suggestion and not by the power of
electricity. "I hate to be blunt about it, but there is this
well-established effect in science and we've studied it over and over and
it's called the placebo effect."
That doesn't ring true to Mr. Byrne. He says his sensitivity might have been
prompted by his decision last year to conserve energy by replacing much of
his home's simple incandescent lighting with high-efficiency compact
fluorescent bulbs, some brands of which cause the power-quality problem.
He's become so convinced that electricity can make people sick that he's set
up a website, offering tips to fellow sufferers on how to alleviate their
symptoms, such as urging them to throw out their dimmer switches and
limiting exposures to electronic gadgets. When it comes to electricity, Mr.
Byrne says, "I think people should automatically begin changing their
lifestyles."
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