The controversy over whether or not low-level electromagnetic fields (EMF) can cause cancer has been smoldering for 15 years. This month it got a little hotter -- but there's still more smoke than fire. At the beginning of October, writer and EMF gadfly Paul Brodeur brought out his latest book exposing a purported EMF-cancer connection, entitled The Great Power-line Cover-up. Right on his heels, however, on 9 October, the British Medical Journal weighed in with two serious scientific assessments of the cancer risk. Unfortunately for those who long for a conclusive answer, one study found only a slight positive association between EMF and cancer, and the other found no link at all. Together the studies [open quotes]artfully provide middle-of-the-road type of evidence,[close quotes] says Dimitrios Trichopoulos, chairman of the epidemiology department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
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Gary Taubes (1993) studied this question.