cell phones have been in the news. Long-time skeptics know that this is just the latest variation of this health scare, which shares many features with the phenomenon known as a moral panic.
These fears no doubt have ties to the long-standing popular fear that mobile phones may cause brain cancer. This idea entered the popular consciousness in the U.S. in 1993 when David Reynard appeared on The Larry King Show to claim it caused his wife's death. But there was an even earlier story that laid the groundwork for that one.
A self-funded study published in 1979 by Nancy Wertheimer (born April 30, 1927) claimed that a cluster of childhood leukemia in the Denver area was caused by exposure to nearby power lines. Her study was popularized in The New Yorker in a series of articles by Paul Brodeur, who was born May 16, 1931.
Brodeur began as a novelist, but had made his name as an investigative reporter with a series of articles about the real dangers of asbestos. He continued to investigate what he thought were other similar environmental hazards such as computer screens and electric power lines. His first article on the power lines topic appeared in the June 12, 1989 issue, and the material was compiled into a book later in 1989 with the fear-mongering title "Currents of Death".
This ignited something of a national panic over power lines and other sources of electric fields. Later investigations showed that there was nothing to panic about. Wertheimer's original study was deepy flawed; and even though the use of electric appliances has increased, incidence of leukemia has been decreasing for decades. But when PBS's Frontline covered the issue on June 13, 1995 (in an episode titled "Currents of Fear"), Brodeur stuck to his guns.
As skeptics well know (and as the recent Canadian news shows), once these ideas get a foothold, it is hard to stop them. The physicist and skeptic Bob Park knows this too. He has been fighting this particular battle in his weekly What's New column since the beginning in 1989.
An interesting footnote to this story is playing out right now in New York City. In 1992, Paul Brodeur donated many boxes of manuscripts, notes and other materials to the New York Public Library. This might be an interesting treasure trove for an enterprising skeptic who wants to study the origin of a modern technological panic.
But you'd better hurry. Brodeur has apparently become unhappy with the way the library is handling his legacy, and has made the unprecedented move of asking that it be returned. This very public battle is still ongoing.
Although some have not gotten the news, the scientific battle over common exposure to electromagnetic fields is definitely over. They are not dangerous.
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(This is adapted from a segment that originally appeared on the Skepticality podcast episode #132)
Tim Farley is a Research Fellow for JREF.