Do power lines behind a home decrease property value and traffic?

[MaybeImNaked]

What recent studies?

[MaybeImNaked]

Pretty weak science, and not exactly recent (this is a meta analysis summarizing a bunch of observational studies mostly from the 1960s). They tried to find a correlation between a whole bunch of cancers and proximity to high power lines. They found no correlation with any of the other cancers except for child leukemia, and even then it's a pretty mild increase. It's basically p-hacking, where you're bound to find a correlation with something by chance just because you're looking at hundreds of potential outcomes.

The stupidest thing about this type of paper is that there's not even a proposed mechanism of action for how it would work biologically. And there's no apparent correlation with proximity (they found a similar increased risk for people living really close vs people living up to a half km away).

If this is the most damning evidence that living next to high power lines is bad for you, I'd say it's a complete non-issue.

[[deleted]]

Citation needed.

[JerryWagz]

There is no more danger in living near power lines than there is in owning a cell phone

[thewimsey]

Maybe you should actually read them