Data on Power Line Danger Faked, Government Says

A scientist whose 1992 study linking high-voltage power lines to cancer contributed to public fears was found to have faked his data and has left the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the government said Friday.

Robert P. Liburdy had claimed to have found a link between the electromagnetic fields around power lines and certain cellular changes in the body.

After a whistle-blower complained, the federal Office of Research Integrity investigated and concluded that Liburdy had committed scientific misconduct by tossing out data that did not support his conclusions, said the agency’s director, Chris Pascal.

“The evidence demonstrates Liburdy knew his data manipulations were significant to the conclusions of the paper,” the agency said.

Liburdy, a 51-year-old cellular biologist who lives in Tiburon, outside San Francisco, resigned his 15-year position in March after losing his funding, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

In May, he agreed to ask the scientific journals that published his work to retract three key graphs. Liburdy, who had received $3.3 million in federal grants for his research, also agreed to a three-year ban on receiving federal funds.

However, in a letter in last month’s issue of the journal Science, he denied doing anything wrong other than failing to explain his graphing procedures.

“My scientific conclusions stand as published,” Liburdy wrote. “I admit no scientific wrongdoing. I could not afford a protracted legal battle with the ORI, and a settlement was reached by which I admit no liability.”

Three independent scientists who evaluated the facts at Liburdy’s request supported him, the Chronicle reported.

Liburdy did not respond Friday to a request for comment faxed to his home by Associated Press.

The possibility that electromagnetic fields can cause childhood leukemia and other illnesses has raised fears among people living near high-tension power lines.

The theory had been raised well before Liburdy’s study, but he found what was thought to be the first plausible biological explanation for such a connection. However, at least 20 subsequent studies failed to find any conclusive link of the sort he described.

Some statistical studies that looked at the rate of cancer among people living near power lines have indicated that it is more common among those exposed to electromagnetic fields.

But according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, virtually all of the laboratory studies of animals and humans “fail to support a causal relationship.” At the same time, the agency has said that invisible fields created by power lines “cannot be recognized as entirely safe.”

Liburdy’s studies, published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and FEBS Letters, a publication of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, tied electric and magnetic radiation to calcium signaling, a process responsible for a number of cellular functions, including cell division and the turning of genes on and off.

The Office of Research Integrity examined Liburdy’s raw data and found that in one graph, he had used only 7.1% of his data. The agency also said he fabricated data.

“In contrast to the data shown in the figure, the full set of primary data does not show that exposure to low-strength electromagnetic fields results in an inhibition or in a lower level of calcium ions in the cells,” the agency reported.

Raymond Neutra, chief of California’s Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease, said Liburdy’s 1992 research was important, but the epidemiological studies that followed are more so.

“His research was not the keystone in the arch,” Neutra said. “That particular piece of research is only tangentially related. The extent we’re concerned comes from epidemiological research, not lab research like Liburdy’s.”