ESB rejects claims of childhood leukaemia risk from power lines

The ESB has dismissed new claims that exposure to electricity power lines can increase the risk of cancer, particularly childhood leukaemia.

The company was reacting to newly published research from Oxford University scientists which found that children living near high-voltage power lines are substantially more likely to develop leukaemia.

Children living within 200 metres of the overhead cables were 70 per cent more likely to develop the disease than those living more than 600 metres away.

Children living between 200 and 600 metres away had a 20 per cent increased risk, according to the research published in the British Medical Journal yesterday.

Researchers conducted an eight-year investigation of 9,700 children who developed leukaemia in England and Wales between 1962 and 1995.

They found 64 of the children lived at birth within 200 metres of a power line and 258 lived between 200 and 600 metres away. The ESB said it was examining the findings of the UK study, but there was no scientific evidence of cancer or any other health risk associated with its power lines.

"The possible risk to health associated with high-voltage power lines has undergone extensive international study over the past 30 years.

"It has not been established that there is any evidence of damage to health arising from exposure to these power lines," a spokesman for the ESB said.

The UK research group had found a "suggested association" between power lines and leukaemia in children, but that this was statistical, not scientific.

The author of the study, Gerald Draper, said the research team from the Oxford childhood cancer research group had not found any scientifically valid causal link between the cancers and proximity to power lines.

However, the statistics did suggest that living in close proximity to a power line might be linked in some way to five cases of leukaemia a year in Britain.

The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, which is responsible for ESB pylons and substations, said all international standards in relation to these structures were adhered to. The British report would be considered in the coming weeks, a spokesman said.

In answer to a Dáil question asked last week by Independent TD Finian McGrath on the health concerns associated with masts and pylons, the Minister, Noel Dempsey, said there was "no scientific or medical evidence that electromagnetic fields from such installations, below the level of internationally recognised guidelines, are injurious to health".

An anti-pylon campaigner said that, while definitive scientific proof was not yet available, populations living close to high-voltage lines were suffering alarming cancer rates.

"I don't want to overemphasise a link until it has been totally proven, but something is causing these cancers and leukaemia.

"I would not advise anybody to live under or near these power lines and I would not do it myself," Willie Cunningham of the Cork Anti-Pylon Representative Association said.

There was a significant body of research that found no link between electricity and cancer, he said.

"As a scientist myself, in many ways I would be swayed by the body of evidence that says there is no link, but when you look into the background of it much of that stuff is paid for by the power companies."

The British statistical evidence indicated that the jury was still out on whether the link was a scientific fact, he said.

"If that statistic can be backed up, then it will be a cause for deep concern."