Subject: East-West "Blue World" War (Maisch)..
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 084605 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
--------------------------------------------------
Hi everybody:
......Don Maisch has forwarded an excellent essay about the
differences that are arising as scientists and "standards-setters"
from the two opposite sides of the "Iron Curtain" are now trying
to get together on the **truth** about EMF risks and standards.....
As he skillfully explains -- it may just be that the "science" on
"our" side has been badly **skewed** by political and economic
influences...... Paradoxical, isn't it??!! Here, we alwys thought
that "they" were the political/economic **idealogues**.....!!!!
Cheerio..... (Many thanks, Don....)
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
NEW!!! Website... http://emfguru.com
...................People are more important than profits.................
DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST???
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 00:46:31 +1100
From: Don Maisch
To: rbeavers@mail.llion.org
Subject: Article for distribution
Hi Roy
The following article I put together after reading the excellent article in
the latest Microwave News (Nov/Dec 1999) "Standards Harmonization Meeting:
Russia and West Far Apart."
The current push to get ICNIRP accepted as an "International" standard
should be considered just as serious as the MAI push. The consequences
will be similar if it is sucessful. For those who can get hold of the
Microwave News article it is very important reading.
Please distribute as you see fit.
Regards
Don Maisch
-----------------------------
Setting radio frequency/Microwave (RF/MW) exposure guidelines to protect
workers and the public: Russia and the West in major conflict.
By Don Maisch
1/18/00
Russian, and other Eastern European countries' exposure limits for radio
frequency and microwave (RF/MW) radiation are far stricter than those in
either the U.S. or Western Europe, a situation that has existed for over
30 years, mainly due to a fundamental difference between East and West as
to exactly what exposure standards should provide protection against.
With the previous "cold war" between East and West now well over, and the
present push toward "globalisation", an attempt was made to resolve this
difference at the 2nd International Conference on Problems of
Electromagnetic Safety of the Human Being, held in Moscow, in late 1999.
This conference was sponsored by the Russian National Committee on
Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP) and many other Russian
scientific organisations, in conjunction with the World Health Organisation
(WHO), the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
(ICNIRP) and the U.S. Air Force.
Despite extensive discussions during this conference, the attempt to
"harmonise" RF/MW standards was unsuccessful with little chance of a
compromise in the near future. As mentioned by Professor Yuri Grigoriev,
chairman of the RNCNIRP and a senior research scientist in Moscow, "So far
we have entirely different approaches to "harmonisation". Western standard
setting organisations have emphasised protection from RF/MW thermal
effects," Grigoriev said, "while Russia's more restrictive standard also
reflects a concern over non thermal effects and subjective symptoms."
Grigoriev emphasised the need to take into account possible cumulative
effects from repeated exposure to relatively low levels of radiation as
well as the potential bioeffects of specific modulated patterns. "If we
bring our viewpoints together, we will have a shorter way to harmonise," he
said.
Way back, during the second world war, concerns began to be raised from
military personnel that there may be health hazards from working with radar
equipment. Servicemen standing in front of the radar antenna soon
discovered it was a great way to keep warm on a cold night but rumours
began to circulate that it could also cause temporary sterility. In the
1940's various US military and government agencies investigated the
possibilities of health hazards. They all found no evidence of hazards but
recommended avoiding prolonged exposure as a precautionary measure.
After the war in the late 1940's several studies came to light that
indicated that there were possible hazards involved with the use of
microwaves. In 1948 two U.S. studies reported a possible link with
cataracts and testicular degeneration in dogs. These studies were largely
ignored, simply because the companies, that had developed microwave
technology for the military, saw an opportunity for wide commercial use of
microwaves, such as Diathermy equipment and later microwave ovens. As such,
there was no interest in funding research that may put a damper on this
expanding business opportunity. It must also be remembered that this was
the start of the Cold War between the East and West and military uses of
Radar and other new equipment were seen as paramount to the national
interest.
However in 1953 a study of workers at Hughes Aircraft Corp. found
excessive amounts of internal bleeding, leukemia, cataracts, headaches,
brain tumours, heart conditions, etc. in those employees working with
radar. This study resulted in the US military initiating the first
investigation into the biological effects of microwaves with the aim to
develop "tolerance levels" for both single and repeated exposures. Since
little research data existed at that time [that could be used in
determining tolerance limits] it was decided that the known ability of
microwaves to heat up tissue (thermal effects) would be the main criterion
used in developing limits. This decision, based more on a lack of
scientific data than anything else, quickly gained favour with both the
military and industry as it avoided the unknown issue of other possible
non-thermal health effects not caused by tissue heating.
The "thermal school of thought" quickly became the accepted norm with
Western standard setting organisations and as a result the vast majority of
research in the West was directed at short term, high level exposures, with
the aim of gaining a better understanding of thermal effects and refining
exposure standards to give adequate protection against body heating.
Research that may be directed towards other health effects than thermal was
not favored; and any findings, especially epidemiological, that indicated
that low level biological effects may exist were criticised and not
followed up on. It simply was bad for business!
This situation was well described by Dr. Rochelle Medici, a researcher on
animal behaviour, who said, " It is though scientists had retreated from
doing challenging, frontier studies because such work engendered too much
controversy or elicited too much criticism. We are left with "Safe" but
meaningless experiments. The results of such experiments are a foregone
conclusion".
Now, almost 50 years after the first enquiry into setting an exposure
standard in the USA, the arbitrary decision to consider thermal effects
only ... has become a paradigm in the West.
Today the ICNIRP exposure guidelines (thermal only) are being promoted as
'the best that science has to offer' for an "international" standard, and
many countries are now being urged to incorporate it as their national
standard.
In Russia however a vastly different political, economic and social
situation resulted paradoxically in giving their scientists far more
democratic and academic freedom (and funding) than their Western
counterparts in choosing the focus of their research efforts, without
interference from vested interests. This has resulted in a Russian RF/MW
exposure standard with a different viewpoint on what "protection" should
mean in regards to ensuring people's health.
While thermal effects are accepted by both Western and Russian scientists,
it was only the Russians that expanded their own research to include
extensive studies with human workers that were exposed to non-thermal
electromagnetic fields. The reasons why Eastern scientists had more
freedom in this regard are as follows:
*A Socialist philosophy about protecting the "worker".
*The military was exempt from the public/occupational standard and could go
about its business unfettered by these limits. As such, Russian (USSR)
research into developing a non-thermal standard that considered low level
prolonged exposures was not seen as a possible threat to the military's
developing and deploying new technology, the way it was in the U.S.A for
instance. An example of this was the suppression of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) 1990 report, "Evaluation of the Potential
Carcinogenicity of Electromagnetic Fields", which was a review of the
scientific literature up to that date. A US Airforce paper on the EPA
report stated: "If published, the (EPA) report will contribute to public
anxiety and have serious impacts on capabilities and costs of airforce
programs."
*The absence of large capitalist private corporations who were investing in
microwave technology purely for future corporate profit, and would view
research into low level hazards as, itself, a risk for "the bottom line".
An example of this was in Australia where the possible health risks from
mobile phone use were considered serious enough to mention in the TELSTRA 2
share offer document. The document says there have been alligations but no
proof and warns "there is a risk that a perceived or actual risk could lead
to litigation against Telstra".
Now that East and West are talking about the standard setting process, it
is only rational that the large body of Russian medical research into
non-thermal biological effects should now be included in standard setting.
Unfortunately however, it appears that the current attitude of ICNIRP is
that the process of harmonisation means total acceptance of the existing
ICNIRP guidelines (thermal effects only) without alteration.
This was very much the case in the 1999 Australian Standards TE/7
Committee: Human Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields, where an alliance of
government/industry/military representatives would consider no changes to
ICNIRP, despite concrete evidence being submitted that the ICNIRP
guidelines were incorrect and biased in their interpretion of the Western
scientific literature.
Now that the large body of Russian literature is becoming available to the
West, which convincingly shows that the ICNIRP voluntary standards do not
provide adequate protection for workers and the public, how will our
standard setting bodies handle that?
If it turns out that ICNIRP still insists that only high level thermal
effects can be considered in standard setting then the question must be
raised: just who does ICNIRP provide protection for, anyway!?!
_______________________________
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Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com