BRITAIN: Children living near high-voltage power lines are substantially more likely to develop leukaemia, researchers from Oxford University and the UK national electricity grid report today in the British Medical Journal.
Those living within 200 metres of the overhead cables were 70 per cent more likely to develop the disease than similar children living more than 600 metres away. And those living between 200 and 600 metres away had a 20 per cent increased risk.
The results were based on an eight-year investigation into the home circumstances of the 9,700 children who developed leukaemia in England and Wales between 1962 and 1995. Since the 1950s the UK National Grid has erected more than 4,000 miles of high-voltage overhead lines.
The researchers 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 statistics suggested that living in close proximity to a power line might be linked in some way to five cases of leukaemia a year.
But Gerald Draper, leader of the study team from the Oxford childhood cancer research group, said the research had not found any scientifically valid causal link.
Earlier research showed that high-voltage lines could give out a weak magnetic field extending for about 60 metres. This was equivalent to about 1 per cent of the earth's existing magnetic field. It could not explain why the risk of leukaemia was as great for a child living nearly 200 metres from a line as for one living directly beneath one.
Dr Draper said: "It may not be the effect of power lines at all. It may be something to do with the kind of areas where power lines are located, or the sort of people who live in these areas." About 4 per cent of people in England and Wales live within 600 metres of a high-voltage line.