Posted on 06/19/2008 1:44:33 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Purchasers of hybrid vehicles, which are subsidized by the federal government and championed by environmental activists as a way to reduce gasoline consumption, are trading in their vehicles because of health fears concerning electromagnetic fields created by the hybrid batteries, says John Dale Dunn, a policy advisor for the American Council on Science and Health.
As noted in an April 27 article in the New York Times:
Some hybrid vehicle owners are complaining of a variety of health problems allegedly caused by strong electromagnetic currents from the cars' batteries. Reported ailments and concerns include rising blood pressure, drowsiness behind the wheel and higher leukemia risks. Various agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, acknowledge the potential hazards of long-term exposure to a strong electromagnetic field (E.M.F.), and have done studies on the association of cancer risks with living near high-voltage utility lines. Drivers who have given up their hybrids have reportedly documented "dangerously high" electromagnetic fields, leading them to conclude driving the vehicles is not worth risking blood for oil. This issue illustrates the double standard regarding environmental activists, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
"Environmental activists routinely use the Precautionary Principle as a weapon against technologies and products they do not like," Burnett explains. "They assert that until and unless a product they oppose can be definitively proven to be safe, the product must be banned. Now, however, when consumers and some scientists assert that one of the activists' pet products may be causing serious health harms, the activists act like they have never heard of the Precautionary Principle."
Source: John Dale Dunn, "Hybrid Vehicle Owners Report Adverse Health Effects," Heartland Institute, July 1, 2008; and Jim Motavalli, "Fear, but Few Facts, on Hybrid Risk," New York Times, April 27, 2008.
For text:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23393
For Times text:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/automobiles/27EMF.html
For more on Environment Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=31
In all fairness, I don’t believe that Toyota has been very open about the EMF spectrum. They have said the 60hz band is safe, but haven’t disclosed much else, if my information is correct.
Facts never get in the way of a zealot with lawyer friends.
They must be AC batteries ;-p
We got rid of a Chevy Trailblazer. 4 wheel drive, V6 and 13 MPG consistently.
Ford Escape hybrid, 4 wheel drive, 31 MPG average, 27 in the winter when it wants to keep running the engine to keep the cat coverter hot. I’ve read that if the EPA didn’t require the cat stay hot, they would get close to 40 mpg.
It’s a little smaller but accelerates as well as the Chevy. Feels no different that a regular SUV except it makes no noise coming up the drive.
Why can’t one shield the wires with copper braid and encase the motor? How much radio frequency energy is dangerous? One should consider laptop computers and monitors if one is becoming concerned. We live in the US bathed in a 60 cps electrical and magnetic field.
That already happens in conventional vehicles, hairdryers, fluorescent light bulbs, escalators, marital aids, and the list goes on.
For some folks, EMF is to us as lead plates (pewter) was to the Romans.
The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes liberals...again.
Ditto on driving a paid off vehicle.
I drive a 1998 Chevy Lumina that gets around 24.5mpg (320 miles on a 13gal tank).
I paid $200 for the car when my lease car expired just before a trip to Korea. I didn’t have time to do the research and shopping, so I bought a fairly well maintained fleet car for cash.
Every day, I watch a particular rust spot with pride.
I hope this thing runs another 130,000 miles, because not having a car payment is addictive.
And, like you, I’m a fan of the hybrid concept for certain applications, just not he current cost and applications.
I had to go ask my wife about this one. She’s a paramedic. She said, “Pure, unadulterated bunk”. I cleaned that quote up a bit.
vaudine
I do...I do! An electromagnetic field is a pasture where you allow electromagnets to graze and grow strong!
Seriously, not everyone with a pacemaker is old. I have a friend who got one in his 40s. Microwaves generally don't bother pacemakers anymore because newer models have better shielding, but large industrial motors have enough of a magnetic field to affect pacemakers.
The way I see it, they haven’t found any adverse health effects from an MRI machine (which has one kickass EMF),
so a few electric motors and generators sitting several feet away from you aren’t going to cause any appreciable adverse health effects.
http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/drug_guide/Marijuana
But these are symptoms whose etiology also causes hybrid vehicle owners to purchase their cars in the first place. It also causes them to get all paranoid about the Earth overheating- like 2 degrees man, over the next century, dude! Right before they get the munchies.
I have a step daughter who got a pacemaker at age 1.
The joke was that the car killed them, nothing to do with their age.
sorry I should of asked your wife instead of these fools,http://www.medlaw.com/healthlaw/EMS/3_4/hybrid-vehicles-pose-dang.shtml
Seems to me, the hybrids ‘should’ do much better.
“Aluminum foil seat covers.”
Great idea! That way you could bake a potato in the passenger seat, and it would be ready to eat by the time you left work! (Unless, of course, you work third shift!):)
Everything you read the iNTeRNeT is always true. Tell you what. I’ll call my buddy who is a firefighter and get back to you with his answer.
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