Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The children of mothers who were in the middle group for
magnetic field exposure were 74 percent more likely to have
asthma than kids of momsin the lowest group.
Put another way, about 13.6 percent of children whose
mothers had the least exposure to magnetic fields had asthma,
compared to 20.3 percent in the moderate group and 33.3
percent of the children of mothers with the highest magnetic field
exposure.
'This is a carefully executed and analyzed study with a very
provocative finding,' said Dr. Jonathan Samet, a professor in the
department of preventive medicine and director of the Institute
forGlobalHealthattheUniversityofSouthernCalifornia,whohas
studied the health impacts of electromagnetic fields. 'This initial
finding needs replication; the association is strong and merits
follow-up.'
The study also found strong associations between EMFs and
asthma in women whose children had other risk factors for
developingasthma,includingthemotherhavingasthmaherselfor
being the first-born child.
The children of mothers who had asthma and were exposed
to high levels of EMF had six times the chances of having asthma,
whilefirst-bornchildrenhada40percentincreasedriskofhaving
asthma if their motherswere exposed tohigh levels of EMFs.
Overall,about13percentofU.S.childrenhaveasthma,accord-
ing to background information in the article, while prevalence has
risen74percentfrom1980to1996.Therapidrisehasledexperts
to search for environmental exposures that might be contributing
to the increase.
Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in modern life. Anything
electronic, such as appliances and power lines, generate magnetic
fields. Cell phones and other wireless technology are a source of
EMF,althoughinthestudy,thedevicewornbythewomenwasonly
able to measure lower frequency magnetic fields, such as those
from household appliances and power sources. It was not able to
track exposure to higher-frequency electromagnetic fields coming
from wireless networks and cell phones.
ConcernoverEMFswasfirstraiseddecadesago.Priorresearch
has searched for a link between EMFs and cancer. But most of
those studies have found no association, leading to a 'dismissive
attitude'about EMFs among many experts, Li said.
