GEOPHYSICAL VARIABLES AND BEHAVIOR .82. A STRONG ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SUDDEN-INFANT-DEATH-SYNDROME AND INCREMENTS OF GLOBAL GEOMAGNETIC-ACTIVITY - POSSIBLE SUPPORT FOR THE MELATONIN HYPOTHESIS

A significant subpopulation of young infants who die suddenly (SIDS) o ften exhibit anomalies consistent with disruptions within the pineal-l imbic system. We have hypothesized that sudden decreases in nocturnal melatonin by a specific range of geomagnetic activity would precipitat e sudden infant death. A correlation of .90 was found between the numb ers of cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome per month during the year s 1960 and 1961 in Ontario and an increase (primarily) in numbers of d ays per month with average geomagnetic activity between 11 and 20 nT a nd 31 through 40 nT but a decrease in the numbers of days with values between 21 and 30 nT. This nonlinear sensitivity, presumably associate d with specific ripple frequencies within the geomagnetic field, may e xplain the failure by other researchers to detect linear associations between the numbers of these types of deaths and gross, scalar indicat ors of geomagnetic activity.