As the Senate will be well aware, this is Breast
Cancer Awareness Week. On Monday we heard a great
deal about the importance of early detection. We
heard that breast cancer in Australia affects one in
14 women, kills one in 27 and is growing at the rate
of three per cent annually. It is this last statistic
which I think should give us the greatest concern.
The excellent advances in the treatment of breast
cancers will be lost if we do not do the research
into the cause of this insidious disease.
I want to talk today about a body of research
which is emerging on the links between melatonin,
Tamoxifen, 50 to 60 hertz electromagnetic fields and
breast cancer. At the First World Conference on
Breast Cancer held in Canada in July of this year,
consultant Cindy Sage said:
"Since 1979, scientific studies have linked
electromagnetic field exposure and various cancers,
including breast cancer. EMF has been reported in
epidemiological, laboratory and whole animal studies
to be associated with increased breast cancer rates
and several hypotheses have been offered, including
melatonin modulation and cellular membrane (Ca)
dysfunction. If EMF is even a small risk factor for
breast cancer, the public health consequences will be
very large given the incidence of this disease.
Decision-making on public health issues where
there is a large industry presence which may suffer
financial consequences with the admission of
liability for a carcinogenic product creates a most
difficult climate for funding, evaluating and acting
on new scientific information. The state of the
science becomes a battleground, where scientific
uncertainty (lack of causal evidence of scientific
proof) is argued as reason to defer action or take
trivial or meaningless action.
Standards of evidence for triggering interim
public health advisories are different than the
standard for scientific certainty. A lower threshold
of evidence is permissible where the weight of the
evidence warrants interim action. To wait for
conclusive scientific evidence as judged by purely
scientific research standards is inappropriate where
the weight of the existing evidence is persuasive,
the trend of studies is generally positive and
consistently confirmed and the consequence of taking
no action has a potentially large adverse public
health impact (dread disease, high incidence, high
financial and emotional cost) and where relative
costs of avoidance of the risk factor may be
low."
As the senate will be aware, the Democrats have, a
number of times, alerted the government to the need
for research. To give it its dues, $4.5 million was
set aside for research into health effects of
electromagnetic radiation in the last budget. The
Senate will also have noticed that the NH&MRC
called this week for applications for that research
money. So it is timely this week to mention breast
cancer in this context.
I will seek to incorporate a discussion paper on
the subject, which was been prepared by Mr Don
Maisch. The paper draws on a range of research
material which shows that low-level exposure to 50-60
hertz electromagnetic fields, which is the powerline
frequency, may block the body's natural production of
melatonin and, therefore, its ability to suppress
breast cancer cells. Melatonin, for the information
of the Senate, is produced by the pineal gland and it
acts to clean up cancer cells.
The studies referred to in this paper have been
done only in the last few years and many of them are
still awaiting peer review processes. Of course, this
process can take years. In most circumstances it is
quite proper to wait for the peer review to be
completed. We know that the telecommunications
industry, for instance, often dismissed research
because it has not been replicated. As we also know,
research dollars are very tight and it is usually the
new and the ground braking research which will be
funded ahead of replication.
The argument I want to make here is that the $4.5
million is not a lot when, firstly, it is spread over
four years and when, secondly, you see it in light of
the fact that research is very costly. For instance,
it cost Telstra $500,000 to conduct its research into
exposing mice to mobile phone frequencies quite
recently. Research costs money and it takes time but
the point is that, where there is a reasonable doubt,
we cannot afford to ignore the evidence and we have
to take some precautionary measures.
To return to the paper that I referred to earlier,
Australian exposure standards are currently designed
to avoid immediate high level hazards. The guidelines
that we have in this country are 1,000 milliGauss for
residential and 5,000 milliGauss for occupational
exposure. What these standards do not consider is the
prolonged, low-level exposure of the 50-60 hertz
field. Researchers have, for some time, suspected
that low-level powerline frequency magnetic fields in
the 50-60 hertz range may reduce the pineal gland's
production of melatonin. It's ability to suppress
cancer cells is referred to as the "melatonin
hypothesis."
In the program bulletin of the Second World
Congress for Electricity and Magnetism in Biology and
Medicine, held in Italy in June this year, mention is
made of this melatonin hypothesis: "A number of
experimental studies have been conducted to test the
[melatonin] hypothesis.
"Although the literature is still evolving
and consensus is being built, it is fair to say, a)
there exists credible scientific support for the
hypothesis and, importantly, b) this support
encompasses in vitro, in vivo, and epidemiological
research. The melatonin hypothesis, thus, currently
represents one of the more well documented/tested
interactions in the field of
bio-electromagnetics."
The question which is posed in this discussion
paper is: what is the medical fraternity to do when
it is presented with a significant body scientific
evidence that exposure to low-level powerline
frequency magnetic fields may well be a risk factor
in breast cancer?
I urge senators and the public to read this
discussion paper. Much of it is quite technical, but
if we can get beyond questions of treatment and early
detection of breast cancer, and make some inroads
into that three per cent increase in breast cancer
incidence, then we need to be open to exploring
possible causes and we need to be prepared to take
action on the remedies which arise from them. The
concerns expressed in this discussion paper are not
about power-lines per se. At the Italian congress, a
paper was presented by the University of Tokyo which
reported on a study which set out to determine
whether the effects of long-term powerline frequency
EMF from electric blanket exposure, for instance,
suppressed melatonin in humans.
The study suggested that exposure to
electromagnetic fields through frequent use of
electric blankets: "could lead to changes in
melatonin production and rhythm, at least in highly
sensitive individuals."
The subjects in this study were healthy young male
volunteers. The authors wrote of a need for more
research into the effects on immune systems that are
already under strain. For example, chemotherapy
patients.
*Correction: In my discussion
paper it is not the authors of the above
mentioned study that call for more research into
the effects on immune systems that are already
under strain. It is a point that I raise for
further research. Ed
Long-term employment trends for women point to an
urgent need for research into occupational EMF
exposure. Through part - and full-time work in
service industries and offices, women are
increasingly engaged in work involving a high degree
of VDU use.
A Boston University study on breast cancer rates
found that a 43 per cent increase in breast cancer
was apparently amongst women with a high potential
for occupational exposure to magnetic fields; namely,
women working with mainframe computers.
Several studies have detected little, if any,
change in melatonin levels overnight and on weekends
in office workers, suggestion that electromagnetic
frequency exposure is a persistent entity. It seems
the reduction in melatonin levels from a full week in
the office cannot be counteracted by a weekend break
or by spending the occasional day at work away from
the computer.
With breast cancer prevention high on our research
agenda, we cannot afford to neglect the possible role
of EMF exposure. The International Breast Cancer
Intervention Study, which has been running for five
years, is investigating whether the drug Tamoxifen
can be used as a prophylactic by women who have a
strong family predisposition towards breast cancer.
The participants are women aged from 35 to 70 from
the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Europe.
Various studies suggest that the inhibitory effect
of Tamoxifen in cancerous cells may be reduced by
electromagnetic exposure.
I have just managed a couple of excerpts from that
discussion paper. Time does not allow me to go into
more detail on those but I think it is time that we
stopped sitting back and saying, 'There needs to be a
balance of interests,' and trotting out those age-old
arguments about the risks of getting this disease
being akin to being run over by a bus. That sort of
fatalism, which says that if it happens, is all very
well until it hits you or somebody in your family.
Again, I urge senators to read the discussion
paper and to do more than awareness about breast
cancer. My message is that the research must be done
and, in the meantime, there should be a much greater
awareness of the need to act in a precautionary
manner.
I seek leave to incorporate the discussion paper
in Hansard.
Senator Lyn Allison
