Low-frequency environmental EMFs are also produced by many other man-made sources.
Weapons- and theft-detection systems, for example, produce magnetic fields of 1-2 gauss, 100-10,000
Hz. But not all manmade EMFs are produced by design: it has recently been found, for example, that
the starting and stopping of trains in the Bay Area Rapid Transit System in California produced low-
frequency EMFs throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area (11).
Fig. 10.5. Ground-level electric fields of typical high-voltage power lines. a, 115 kv; b, 230 kv; c, 345
kv; d, 500 kv; e, 765 kv.
Epidemiological Studies and Surveys
Environmental studies.
Suicide is a stress-related phenomenon that may be viewed as a specific
manifestation of depressive mental illness. We studied the relationship between suicide and power-
frequency field strength (2, 14). We were concerned with how the field strength at the residences of
suicides compared with that at appropriately-chosen control addresses. The study group consisted of
the 598 suicides that occurred within the study area (in the Midlands of England) during a 7-year
period and an equal number of controls. We first examined the relationship between suicide and the
ELECTROMAGNETISM & LIFE - 138