mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
I’ve been shocked by plenty of faulty lamps and even backed into an electric fence one time, so I know how un-fun having unwanted electricity coursing through your body can be. But what about much lower doses of exposure, over long periods of time? Electric fields are everywhere, but aside from the vague sense that positioning my face near a turned-on microwave is a bad idea, I never thought much about the health implications of everyday EMF. That is, until I found a handy little pamphlet enclosed with my last Southern California Edison power bill: Understanding EMF!
It went something like this: “Questions have been raised about the possible health effects of 60-Hertz electric and magnetic fields, which are found wherever you have electric power. This brochure contains practical tips to help you reduce your exposure at home and at work.” Suddenly, it seemed I had cause for alarm! Could the ambient electrical fields in my own home be hurting me? Of course, I had to find out.
The bottom line is: no one really knows. Various health agencies, including the World Health Organization, seem to agree that if there is a risk, it’s a fairly small one. At the same time, they talk about things like the link between EMF fields and childhood leukemia in not-reassuring ways like “the link isn’t strong enough to be considered causal but is sufficiently strong to remain a concern.” (Oh. I feel … better?)
Magnetic fields are measured in milligauss, and your exposure to them multiplies exponentially with your proximity. For instance, if you’re standing 4 feet from your microwave while it’s busy nuking fishsticks, you’re getting between 3 and 8 milligauss. At 12 inches, it’s up to 80. And if you’re standing at the entirely unreasonable distance of 1.2 inches from your microwave, it’s arguably nuking you, too, with up to 2,000 milligauss.
But is that a lot? For comparison’s sake, here are the 1.2 inch exposures of other household appliances:
Clothes washer: 400
Electric range: 2,000
Flourescent lamp: 4,000
Television: 500
Hair dryer: up to 20,000
Considering that a hair dryer can be five times stronger than a microwave, and you’re much more likely to hold one just inches from your head, perhaps there’s reason to limit exposure. (But keep in mind, exposure drops off radically with distance: at 12 inches, that same hair dryer’s only giving you 70 milligauss.)
Another bit of comparison: if you’re standing directly under heavy-duty buzzing power transmission lines, you’re only receiving about 300 milligauss — the equivalent of sitting on top of your washing machine while it’s on its spin cycle.
While the experts, power companies and pamphlet-makers all seem to be in disagreement about what health effects (if any) EMF can have on us, they all seem to agree on one thing: it’s not a bad idea to limit exposure, when possible. (It’s also not scientifically demonstrably a good idea … sigh.) For instance, the world health organization has issued a very milquetoast “recommendation” that power utilities “explore very low-cost” methods to reduce EMF exposure “from new facilities.” Methods like issuing pamphlets, I assume, which in turn recommend that readers of said pamphlet “may” want to “consider” taking “no-cost measures” to reduce EMF exposure at home.
Measures like:
• Placing phone answering machines and electric clocks away from the head of your bed.
• Don’t sit so close to your computer monitor or the television.
• Limit the time you spend using hair dryers, electric razors, heating pads and electric blankets.
• “You may also want to limit the time you spend using electric cooking appliances.”
• Locate sources of EMF in your work environment and “spend break time in lower-field areas.” (But if your boss wants to run transmission lines under your desk, there’s nothing you can do about it?)
So now the OCD hypochondriac in me is thinking, oh God! I should sell my electric stove and get a gas range! Is my digital alarm clock giving me face cancer while I sleep? This is terrible!
But the power company pamphlet closes by saying, essentially, that none of this matters to anyone but OCD hypochondriacs: “Human studies have not produced a consensus about any health benefits from changing the way people use electric appliances,” and goes on to recommend taking steps to reduce exposure “only if you feel it would be beneficial.” Thanks, power company. Thanks a lot.
in sum, I’ve got just one thing to say about the link between EMF and cancer:
Comments (11)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
Considering all the nasty crap from pharmaceuticals to pesticides to carcinogens that are proven to be dangerous, and regularly found in our air, soil, water, meat, and vegetables… Anyone fearful of EMFs is a fool.
posted by BassMan on 11-6-2008 at 11:40 am
What did it say about keeping a cellular phone clipped to my belt ALL DAY very close to me, eh, baby factory.
posted by Witty Nickname on 11-6-2008 at 11:51 am
EMF’s are a concern, especially for HAM operators like myself. We are always told to keep antennas away from our heads (hard to do with hand held radios) and to keep feed lines as far away as possible. It is also important to operate with low power. The ARRL website has some good reading about EMF’s and human safety
posted by Kevin on 11-6-2008 at 12:19 pm
so microwave is 2000 @ 1.2 inches and 80 @ 12 inches, but a hair dryer is 20,000 @ 1.2 inches and 70 @ 12 inches. Is the decay rate different for different items, I think not. what is the medium here? air? then there decay rates would be common and the hair dryer would still be ten times as powerful as the microwave. fuzzy math makes me doubt propaganda pamphlets.
posted by g on 11-6-2008 at 12:25 pm
Interesting.. mostly because often times (for a period it seemed like EVERY time) I touched an electronic device (specifically when I turned on a radio) I’d experience an immediate and intense urge to urinate. I never needed to pee a great volume, usually just a trickle, but I’d certainly have wet my pants had I attempted to ignore the sensation. I always wondered if the electricity was stimulating my reflex.
posted by Bri on 11-6-2008 at 12:45 pm
I am a microwave/RF engineer, and there are a few things wrong with your post. First, for those who know about “EMF” (more appropriately called “radiated emissions”) there is no link between radiated emissions and cancer because cancer is mutated cells– EMF, when taken in high doses, actually cooks your flesh, rather than mutate it. For instance, your microwave works by very quickly (about 900,000,000 times a second) switching the polarity of the magnetic field in the oven chamber. This causes water molecules, which have dipole moments that align to magnetic fields, to literally move back and forth aligning and realigning to the switching magnetic field. This causes friction at miniscule levels which in turn causes heat, and heat cooks food.
The second thing is that EMF is different from, say, nuclear radiation in that small doses of nuclear radiation leave small traces of radiation in your cells. Thus, the cumulative amount of exposure you receive from nuclear radiation is how much radiation you have. The same is not true for microwave radiation. Small doses do nothing other than generate VERY tiny amounts of heat. It’s doubtful that the amount of heat generated in small doses can be reliably or accurately measured. However, once you cross a certain threshold, dependent on cellular-level biology that I cannot speculate on, once you cross that threshold things can get very bad very quickly. The thing about microwave fields is that they permeate through your body pretty easily. I once shocked myself with about 125W of 900MHz power, and this caused a burn through my finger that resembled a cone, rather than just affecting the surface.
posted by Joel on 11-6-2008 at 4:53 pm
All I know is I get a tummy ache if I have my laptop on my lap for very long. Oh, and I can also say I loved that song back in the day. Thanks for the memories!
posted by JenDiggity on 11-6-2008 at 7:07 pm
electricity is boogery anyway. i think we all know that by now. and worrying about the EMFs seems pretty pointless, because what can we do about it anyway? everythign around us is electrical for the most part. shouldn’t we have been worrying about all this, oh, i don’t know, well before now?
i imagine the main thing the EMFs might do is screw up your personal magnetic feild, which may or may not mess up anythign else in you. certainly there is no reason to be right on top of ANY of your appliances, microwave or no.
but i wonder how many EMFs i soak up sitting right next to the space heater? lol
i don’t care if it’s bad for me- it’s fucking COLD in NY during the winter.
the cell phone thing causes more problems because of radiation and radio frequencies anyway. or at least that’s what i was lead to believe.
posted by Sue on 11-6-2008 at 7:12 pm
My dad’s been an electrician for the last thirty years, and he’s OK. And he’s been working on really high-voltage commercial stuff, not home wiring.
On the other hand, my grandfather was an electrician even longer, and he did get cancer, but that’s hardly definitive.
posted by gibson8or on 11-6-2008 at 9:43 pm
WHAT´S IN THE VIDEO?? I cant see it here at work and I´m extremely curious!!
posted by GTT on 11-7-2008 at 12:49 pm
I played electric guitar in my high school’s marching band, and I was always told by my instructor that the intense electric shocks I experienced during rain storms and days when the field was wet were “harmless”. It’s been a year since then, but I haven’t developed any cancer. In fact, I kind of like the feeling – it’s like a burst of adrenaline, and it gave me the energy I needed to jump around (it was a 50s-themed show). It was also a good excuse to hold girls’ hands; they’d scream “ow” and it would turn into something funny.
posted by Ed on 11-8-2008 at 4:41 pm