Power Lines Increase Risk of Childhood Leukemia – Charity

Charity News Online

A leading British children’s charity has sounded alarm over housing development near power lines, citing a recent survey in Scotland that revealed two out of three people would not buy a house situated near, or under, a power line. The Children with Leukemia charity called for a moratorium on building new houses or schools close to overhead power lines. It said the findings added weight to the Draper Report, published in June last year, which suggested that living too close to overhead power lines appeared to increase the risk of childhood leukemia, the BBC reported.

Eddie O'Gorman, chairman of Children with Leukaemia, said there was growing public support for action. The Draper study looked at more than 29,000 children with cancer, including 9,700 with leukemia, born between 1962 and 1995, and a control group of healthy youngsters in England and Wales. Overall, youngsters living within 200 meters of the lines were about 70% more likely to develop leukemia, and those living between 200 and 600 meters away about 20% more likely to develop leukemia than those who lived beyond 600 meters from high voltage pylons. However, the researchers stressed that there were no accepted biological reasons for the results and that they may, therefore, be chance.

charity, leukemia