Electric and Magnetic Fields and Public Health

(Adopted by Council on April 15, 2005)

On April 23, 1995, the American Physical Society issued a policy statement concerning Power Line Fields and Public Health. The APS concluded that “the conjecture relating cancer to power line fields has not been scientifically substantiated.”

Since that time, there have been several large in vivo studies of animal populations subjected for their life span to high magnetic fields and epidemiological studies, done with larger populations and with direct, rather than surrogate, measurements of the magnetic field exposure. These studies have produced no results that change the earlier assessment by APS. In addition, no biophysical mechanisms for the initiation or promotion of cancer by electric or magnetic fields from power lines have been identified.