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The Body Electric
wires. We found the same association with underground power lines,
but we couldn't be sure whether more than the statistically expected
number of suicides had occurred in areas where the fields were strongest.
Since the total field strength was a combination of elements from many
sources, we proceeded to measure the actual levels. This confirmed a
link. Magnetic fields averaged 22 percent higher at suicide addresses
than at the controls, and areas with the strongest fields contained 40
percent more fatal locations than randomly selected houses.
The Endocrine, Metabolic, and Cardiovascular Systems
Living things interpret electromagnetic energy for information about
time and place, so they must have a means to filter out useless signals,
although perhaps not those never before encountered. Many studies have
found that the bioeffects of artificial energy stabilize after a few weeks,
suggesting that animals adapt so as to live normally in a changed en-
vironment. Hence there's a large body of work that's often quoted to
"prove" that electropollution isn't dangerous. As already noted, this
simplistic viewpoint doesn't take into account the additive effects of
stress. Moreover, when a stress is too strong or too persistent, compensa-
tion fails, and the effects become obvious and sometimes irreversible.
When evaluating research on hazards, therefore, we must always ask
whether the experiment was continued long enough to be informative.
Otherwise, a short-term study showing harm is likely to be truer than a
reassuring one of medium length.
The primary effect of electromagnetic energy on the endocrine system
appears to be the stress responses already described. The major con-
firmatory study in humans comes from the Soviet Union, where detailed
medical tests of seventy-two technicians exposed daily to 1,000 micro-
watts or less disclosed ominous changes in white and red blood cell
counts and an across-the-board decline in immune response. The workers
and a group of controls were studied for three years. No human study
approaching this in length or completeness has ever been done in the
West.
The only other consistently noted glandular change is in the thyroid.
The work of several Soviet groups and one American team in the 1970s
has clearly shown that radio and microwave frequencies, at power densi-
ties well below the American safety guideline of 10,000 microwatts,
stimulate the thyroid gland and thus increase the basal metabolic rate.
ELF fields at 50 hertz, on the other hand, have depressed thyroid ac-
tivity in several experiments on rats. It isn't yet known whether this is a