MORBUS BRODEURlCUS

As I have said before, I am not a doctor and cannot say whether magnetic fields have any health effects on the human body (a diag-nosis, incidentally, identical with that by the most illustrious doctors of the century). What I can say is that the magnetic fields in a home are generally larger than those from power lines, even if they are in the vicinity, so anybody worried about the cancer and other scares put out by Brodeur the eco-porneur need only ask his utility to dis-connect his household.

Brodeur's collections of anecdotal hunches void of any observa-tions with control experiments whatsoever continue to pollute the press, but the great physician (with an M.D. from The New Yorker) has now advanced from diagnostics to therapy in an article pub-lished by Board Room Reports. That says more about a sleazy publication willing to publish such garbage than about any dangers from mag-netic fields, and if you feel unbearable hatred toward your boss, why don't you honor him with a gift subscription? A sample of Brodeur's therapeutic prowess:

"Be sure to unplug the device. Don't just turn it off. No~e: An unheated waterbed will get very cold." (That settles the 1990 Nobel Prize for physics.)

But if the danger of cancer existed, asks an interviewer, a lot of children would have got cancer from watching television. To which he answers "For proof that dangerously high magnetic fields are given off by VDTs [computer terminals], see the July 1990 of Mac-world. "

Indeed, look it up to see what their source is. None other than the illustrious physician, physicist and bibliographer Brodeur himself (who is also an illustrious lawyer, for he has not answered the question.)

For people who prefer experts to eco-pornographers I recom-mend the draft report "Electric and magnetic fields: measurements and possible effects on human health. What we know and what we don't know in 1990", by four M.D.s of the Special Epidemiological Studies Program, Calif. Dept. of Health services, 2151 Berkeley Way/#704, Berkeley, CA 94704. [I do not know how easy it is to get the report; the tel.no. is 415-540-2916]. This is a detailed, readably written report for the public, whose essential conclusion is might be rendered as "we have not uncovered anything conclusive, but we are still trying hard."

I have previously written that I cannot say anything about eye strain and other forms of stress. But as Howard Hayden, professor of physics at the U. of Conn. has recently told me, ultrasound is a possible irritant. Ultrasound is normal sound, but too high to hear, and it may give people headaches or otherwise irritate them: there are some who cannot stay long in an art exhibition if the security system uses ultrasound, and some teaching assistants get headaches (and even red ears) after demonstrating ultrasound equipment in class.