Have experiments on humans shown effects of static fields?
Static electric fields do not penetrate the human body but they can induce a surface electric charge. A sufficiently large charge may be perceived through its interaction with body hair and by other effects such as spark discharges. Painful sparks can occur for instance when a person who is well insulated from the ground, through wearing shoes with plastic soles touches an object that is electrically connected to the ground. For static magnetic fields a range of possible health effects have been investigated, from changes in brain function, blood pressure and body temperature to possible therapeutic effects. Exposure to both pure static fields and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have been studied, with fields as strong as 8000 mT, and, with exposure duration ranging from a few seconds to nine hours. The results are in general inconclusive. Apart from vertigo and nausea reported by people moving in a static magnetic field, the results do not seem to indicate any significant effects of
