In 1996 the US Academy of Sciences evaluated hundreds of scientific papers on the subject of the effect of electricity transmission lines and found no evidence that exposure to these electrical fields presented a hazard to human health. The report pointed out that housing near power lines tended to be poor, densely populated, and subject to heavier traffic emissions and industrial pollution; these, the report says, are the likely cause of the higher rate of cancers in children living near power lines.
In 1997 the US National Cancer Institute concluded after an 8 year study involving 1250 subjects that children who live near high-voltage power lines do not have a greater risk of developing cancer than other young people.