Advisory letter Power lines and Alzheimer’s disease

A Swiss study has recently been published in which the number of deaths with Alzheimer’s disease registered as the primary or secondary cause of death was observed to have approximately doubled among people who lived for more than 10 years within a distance of 50 metres from a power line. The Health Council of the Netherland’s Electromagnetic Fields Committee has evaluated this study in consultation with the Knowledge Platform Electromagnetic Fields and Health, taking also into account data from other studies. This evaluation has been reviewed by the Health Council’s Standing Committee on Radiation and Health. In this advisory letter, I report the final findings and conclusions made by the Electromagnetic Fields Committee.

Committee

• dr. G.C. van Rhoon, physicist, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, chairman
• dr. L.M. van Aernsbergen, physicist, Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, The Hague
• prof. A. Aleman, professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Groningen University
• dr. G. Kelfkens, physicist, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, adviser
• prof. H. Kromhout, professor of Occupational Hygiene and Exposure Characterisation, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, University of Utrecht
• prof. F.E. van Leeuwen, professor of Cancer Epidemiology, Free University of Amsterdam, epidemiologist, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam
• dr. H.K. Leonhard, physicist, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Groningen, adviser
• prof. H.F.J. Savelkoul, professor of Cellular Biology and Immunology, Wageningen University
• prof. W.J. Wadman, professor of Neurobiology, University of Amsterdam
• D.H.J. van de Weerdt, MD, toxicologist and specialist in environmental medicine; Central Gelderland Municipal Health Services (GGD), Arnhem
• prof. A.P.M. Zwamborn, professor of Electromagnetic Effects; Eindhoven University of Technology, physicist, TNO (Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), The Hague
• dr. E. van Rongen, radiobiologist, Health Council of the Netherlands, The Hague, scientific secretary