From kls Thu Sep 16 16:42:43 1999 Path: bounce-back Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners,aus.aviation,misc.transport.air-industry Date: 16 Sep 99 16:42:43 From: "Philip J. Kuhl" Subject: Re: QF Flight Engineers Dying? References: Message-ID: Approved: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM Sender: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM X-Trace: nwhe0ROlBGHwEZYV4ufcIm0SaYt/m1yPXHZdiRH62VA= X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 I am not a medical doctor so offer no medical opinion. But the Boeing 747 has been flying for 30 years --with flight engineers-- and one would think if there were truly a health risk associated with electromagnetic fields (EMFs) that there would be more evidence of this, and certainly something that is not limited to Qantas Airways. Similar fields also exist and have for many many decades with other aircraft, and far stronger ones exist on electrified railways, and for homes near major power transmission lines around the world -- yet there appears to be no outbreak of maladies associated with people routinely exposed to them. The governments of both the UK and the USA has failed to establish any link between EMF exposure and illness -- this in response to periodic public concerns about the use of cellular/cordless telephones, electric shavers, fluorescent lights, power lines, computer monitors, etc. The governmental research notes that there is considerably less EMF generated by direct current appliances than by alternating current. I would suspect --but do not know-- that most avionics would be powered by direct current. Philip J. Kuhl Arlington 4, Virginia PJKuhl@erols.com