“Dirty electricity”: what, where, and should we care?

Abstract

Environmental exposure to high-frequency voltage transients (HFVT), also termed dirty electricity, has been advocated among electro(hyper)sensitive interest groups as an important biological active component of standard electromagnetic pollution. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, in which only seven articles were identified. Exposure to HFVT was associated with increased cancer risks, while preferential removal of 4-100 kHz HFVT from 50-60 Hz ELF circuits was linked to a variety of improvements in health (plasma glucose levels in diabetic patients, symptoms of multiple sclerosis, asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and insomnia), well-being (tiredness, frustration, general health, irritation, sense of satisfaction, mood), and student behavior. However, all these published studies were subject to significant methodological flaws in the design of the studies, the assessment of exposure, and the statistical analysis, which prevented valid assessment of a causal link between this exposure metric and adverse effects. Environmental exposure to HFVT is an interesting EMF exposure metric, which might explain the spurious results from epidemiological studies using 'standard' ELF and RF exposure metrics. However, at present, methodological problems in published studies prohibit the valid assessment of its biological activity.

Systematic Review of the Exposure Assessment and Epidemiology of High-Frequency Voltage Transients

“…One paper was retracted by the journal because of absence of ethical approval ( 34 ). Of the 25 remaining papers, one review, by one of the authors of this paper, reviewed primary data published up to July 31, 2009, which included seven published, peer-reviewed journals papers ( 35 ). The literature base for the present review includes an additional 18 publications, published either as conference abstracts prior to the initial review cut-off or published after the July 31, 2009 cut-off date, and now includes the total evidence base of 12 peer-reviewed journal and conference abstract publications of which three are reviews and three are exposure studies only, seven conference abstracts, one editorial mentioning DE, and six letters to various editors.…”

“… a (*) indicating publication was included in 2010 review in Ref. ( 35 ) . b Duplicate reporting of case studies has never been reported by authors, and identification has been done here based on similarities in case descriptions .…”

“…The previously published review by one of the authors ( 35 ) included five peer-reviewed journal articles available at the time (up to July 31, 2009). It concluded that none of the published peer-reviewed publications were of sufficient scientific quality to be useful to determine whether DE may be the causal exposure for any of the health effects described.…”

“…The majority of available data at the time consisted of a series of case descriptions that were often re-used in other publications, and all of which were based on self-reported health effects and non-blinded exposure conditions making them extremely susceptible to placebo and nocebo effects ( 65 ). This review includes 26 publications, 5 of which were included in the previous review of the epidemiological evidence ( 35 ) and 3 of which were exposure assessment studies only. An overview of all available data for this review is presented in Table 1 .…”

Refutation of dirty electricity hypothesis in obesity: epistemological arguments and trans-disciplinary study using an instrumental variable

“…In citing previous work, Dr. Milham did not include a systematic review in which all available evidence was reviewed by de Vocht (2010). The review concluded that the few studies that were done, mostly by the same researchers, were all subject to methodological problems large enough to prohibit valid assessment of any biological activity of HFVT.…”