Don't let the facts confuse them

One such extra-high-voltage line supplying New York City has recently become the target of societal activists, and also the subject of another of CBS' notorious "documentaries" (Oct. 2). Farmers working under and near the line claim to suffer from "stress symptoms;" mothers will not let their children travel roads passing under the line; and other such distressing reports were presented to the viewer. Then there was a fair debate, with all sides heard, on whether a few people should not suffer a little for the multitudes in the city, or whether New Yorkers should forego air conditioning, or (subtly suggested) whether perhaps the utilities should not give up some of their profits for the sake of human health.

What got lost in all this fairness is whether the charge of health hazards was true in the first place. On that score, there was only one solitary researcher who claimed that his rats had developed "stress symptoms" in high electric fields; the fact that he is all by himself and that his findings have not been confirmed by any independent evaluator was compensated for by having him repeatedly expound his observations.

What CBS didn't tell you is that millions of dollars and decades of research have been spent investigating any possible biological effects of high electric fields, often 20 times as high as result from the highest voltages now in use (765 kV). One such project has been running since 1967 and will have cost $15,500,000 when it ends in December 1979; another ( 16 months, $ 110,000) specialized on people with implanted cardiac pacemakers; another (12 months, $1,200,000) investigated effects on large animals; another (29 months, $122,000) studied the effects on honeybees working under 765 kV lines, but most projects painstakingly studied the effects, if any, on people. Hundreds of human subjects (more than 500 in the lab, the rest linemen and farmers in the field) have been under close medical, and even psychological, observation for years. And these are just a few samples of academic, industrial and government research on both sides of the Atlantic. (For a full account, see EPRI Journal, June/ July 1977) .

Result: "No experiment thus far has clearly established that electric fields even 20 times as high as those encountered under 765 kV transmission lines can cause a biological effect of significance."If electric fields can cause biological effects, it appears that they will be subtle, possibly elusive, and extremely difficult to identify."

But honest and responsible research is not what CBS "documentaries" are made of.