An international expert on electromagnetic fields is investigating a
reported sick building on the University of California San Diego campus that may be blamed
for the unusually high number of women who have developed breast
cancer. Over a 17-year period (1991– 2008), 9 people who had worked in the
Literature Building at some point were diagnosed with breast cancer,
including 8 diagnoses during 2000-2006 in women with a median age of
56. Seven additional women working in the Literature Building from 1997
to 2008 reported cancer diagnoses other than breast cancer.
In June, a report commissioned by the university's epidemiologist Dr. Garland, concluded that the
incidence of breast cancer among women working in the building was four
to five times higher than would be expected in the state's general
population, according to the newspaper.
All of the power for the building passes though a small electrical room on the first floor, which is next door to the elevator equipment room and the powerful motors that draw huge amounts of kilowatts. Both of those rooms are less than 100 feet away from where many of the women with breast cancer worked. Garland’s report said the electromagnetic field in the hallway outside the electrical room was five times greater than what would be expected in a home environment and jumped to 12 times greater when the electric motors on the elevators were running.
The elevators have been shut down and a number of offices on the first floor have been vacated.
At Vital VIbes, we believe in testing for all forms of toxic energy radiations such as microwaves and geopathic stress not just EMFs. The investigators of the UCSD problem seem to be limited in their knowledge or belief of other harmful energies coming from man-made and natural sources. It is not uncommon for geopathic stresses to occur in combination with EMFs and cellular radiation.
Workers Rally Over UCSD Cancer Cluster
Protestors Demand Replacement Of Literature Building Elevator
SAN DIEGO - Dozens of staff, faculty, and professors rallied on the U.C. San Diego campus Wednesday over fears that their workplace is unsafe. It's a story the 10News I Team first highlighted on Monday.
"Our rate of breast Cancer is 4 to 5 times higher than that of the general population," said Literature Chair Nina Zhiri told the crowd gathered around her holding signs and a mock coffin. There have been 8 cases of breast cancer in six years among those who work in the Literature building. Two women have died. "The university has not taken action, that is unacceptable," said Stanley Melad. His mother, Susan, is one of the women who died of breast cancer. She worked in the literature building for 27 years.
Staff members contacted the I-Team after a report was given in confidence to Chancellor Marye Anne Fox last year by it's author, UCSD Dr. Cedric Garland. It detailed a possible link between cancer risk and electro magnetic fields, or EMF, surrounding the building's elevator. At various times the EMF near the elevator measured at a higher level than is considered safe by some U.S. studies and standards set in Europe. "The elevator and electrical equipment are probably to blame," said Zhiri.
The elevator sits on the first floor of the literature building, an unusual design for a multi-story building. Most elevators are docked in a basement, reducing the chance that EMF surges will affect those nearby. The report given to the chancellor said there was a one in three thousand, three hundred and thirty three chance that the cancer rates in the building were due to chance alone. It also detailed that EMF may reduce the effectiveness of Tamoxifen, a popular breast cancer treatment.
"Chancellor Fox, we know the administration can do the right thing," a student protestor told the Chancellor after protestors stopped at her office. The workers want the university to replace the elevator with a safer one. They handed her a petition signed by 13 hundred people.
Chancellor Fox told the crowd that more study is needed. However, she assured them that UCSD is taking the cancer cluster seriously. "From the bottom of my heart, I am concerned about this, want to do the right thing, consistent with the fiduciary duties to the University."
The University has commissioned another study by a well respected UCLA epidemiologist, Dr. Leeka Kheifets. However, there are concerns among the workers about her impartiality. Dr. Kheifets is associated with the Electric Power Research Institute. It's a non profit that studies energy, and its members are U.S. energy providers.
Microwave News reports (February 23, 2009) on the UCSD Cancer Cluster:
The cluster is now being investigated by Leeka Kheifets, who has a position
at UCLA and is closely associated with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI),
an arm of the electric utility industry.
In fact, Kheifets has spent most of her professional career either
directly or indirectly working for EPRI. UCSD appears to have hired
Kheifets on the recommendation of
Emilie van Deventer of the World Health Organization (WHO)
EMF Project in Geneva. van Deventer neglected to mention the
EPRI connection to UCSD. Kheifets's report is expected in a couple of months.
Some, like Dennis Childs,
a UCSD literature professor, have raised questions
about Kheifets's independence from EPRI and the power industry. In
response to these concerns, Kheifets "insisted on the organization's
independence
and emphasized that without the work of the EPRI, there would be
scarce, if any, research on the connection between cancer and EMF,"
according to an
article in
The Guardian, the UCSD campus newspaper.
This must not pass without comment. EPRI's track record on EMFs is a
sordid one. It has served the interests of the electric utility
industry at every turn by seeking to control EMF research. In the 30
years since Nancy
Wertheimer and Ed Leeper first linked power line EMFs with childhood
leukemia, EPRI has not sponsored a single study that has moved the
field forward. Rather it
has sought to slow research or stop it all together, and, whenever
possible, implicate some agent other than EMFs.
One example: Rather
than follow-up the
Wertheimer-Leeper findings, EPRI hired a consulting firm, run by Daniel
Roth, to evaluate their work. He trashed it. This could not have been a
surprise. Roth had previously done a similar hatchet job for EPRI on
work on fine particles in the air and the
risk of asthma attacks. (Roth later worked for the tobacco industry;
see David Michaels's indispensable book,
Doubt Is
Their Product.)
One of the two project managers for the Roth report was Rob Kavet.
Twenty-five years later, Kavet is still at EPRI and now runs its EMF
program.
