Abstract
In June 2001, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified ELF magnetic fields as a possible human carcinogen based on the results of two recent pooled analyses by Ahlbom et al. and Greenland et al. on epidemiological papers for childhood leukemia. Examining the data displayed by them, this author succeeded to read the other informations than theirs: in the paper of Ahlbom et al., for instance, 9 cases were prepared for verifying the hypothesis that magnetic fields are associated with childhood leukemia, and this author considers that the general conclusion derived by inductive inference is that the hypothesis is not supported, because 2 cases out of 9 support the hypothesis and 7 cases do not support the hypothesis, although the hypothesis has been believed by many people for about twenty years; furthermore, the author does not consider that the IARC’s evaluation that risk doubles in excess of 3 or 4 mG is based on the general conclusion, because it comes from pooling two kinds of data, one of which is of 7 cases bringing the ‘general conclusion’, and the other of the remained 2 cases being the ‘particular facts’.
