* Low-intensity radiation health effects (19/7/02)

Tramès per Klaus Rudolph (Citizens' Initiative Omega)


Energy absorption by the matter in living tissue does indeed occur, and it is certainly ONE mechanism by which damage occurs.  For example, it is the mechanism that gives rise to thermal health effects.

But energy absorption is NOT the ONLY mechanism by which radiation can injure living tissue.  Absorption of MOMENTUM will also occur, and this is the phenomenon that gives rise to nonthermal health effects.

I made this statement in a platform presentation given at a special symposium held in Long Beach, California, in conjunction with the June 1999 meeting of the Bioelectromagnetics Society.  My presentation seemed to fall on deaf ears, which is why I expanded upon it considerably when I wrote up this presentation for publication (as Chapter 4 in WIRELESS PHONES AND HEALTH II:  STATE OF THE SCIENCE, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000).

To date, electrical engineers have pretty thoroughly disregarded the phenomenon of momentum absorption; they prefer to focus exclusively on energy absorption.  But as I interpret the evidence, momentum absorption is what is responsible for the very low-intensity health effects that do occur, even though "energetic considerations" indicate that there should be no hazard - which is correct, because the observed low-intensity hazards are NOT produced by energy absorption, but by momentum absorption!

In other words, the unexpected health problems at low radiation intensity are occurring because all attention is being focussed on the ENERGY of the radiation, so that the issue of MOMENTUM TRANSFER is being completely ignored!

That is my first point:  that there are TWO phenomena that require our attention, but only one - energy transfer - has received attention. People who try to explain ALL health effects in terms of energy absorption are going to come up with some pretty weird theories for the low-intensity radiation health effects, because this is NOT explainable by conventional physics in terms of an energetic effect:  there ought to be no such effect.

The other comment I'd like to make picks up on a point that Ron made, though perhaps a bit obliquely.  He made reference to the inadequacy of "conventional radiation detection instruments" for measuring what happens at low radiation intensity.

I had some first-hand experience of this within the past year.  In August & September, 2001, I was working with a dairy farmer in western Wisconsin (USA) who had assembled evidence indicating that the operation of wireless telephone base stations (which emit microwave radiation) within a few miles of his farm was adversely affecting the health of his cows and the amount of milk they gave, as well as his own health and his teen-aged daughter's health. It also occasionally disrupted the operation of engines in farm equipment (a tractor) and motor vehicles on the road.

I arranged for state occupational and environmental health authorities to visit his farm to measure the microwave radiation intensity.  The instrument they used was designed to evaluate compliance with the existing standard (~10 milliwatts/cm2) and it simply was not sensitive enough to measure the very low microwave radiation intensity that was present on his farm.

The state authorities visited all the transmitters in the area, using GPS instruments to locate them, and later gave me a theoretical estimate of the radiation intensity that could be expected; it was exceedingly low.

After searching for equipment capable of measuring such a low microwave intensity in the field, I learned that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had developed such equipment for its biological effects of radiation research program.  But the U. S. Congress had "killed" this research program in the mid-1990s; the equipment was mothballed, and the man who had used it had gone to work for a different federal agency.

This winter, I tried hard to bring man and equipment together so that measurements with this equipment could be made on this farm, but the high-level employees in EPA were not interested (possibly because they felt that Congress would disapprove).  So it did not happen. What is needed here in the USA is for this research program to be reactivated, although I think perhaps it should be taken out of EPA and placed elsewhere. Anyway, the USA has the equipment that is capable of making needed measurements, and there is a government employee familiar with it who can use it skillfully, but there is not a formal program at this time to carry out this kind of research.

So Ron is quite correct that conventional radiation detection instruments are utterly inadequate to measure what needs to be measured, in order to address the low-intensity radiation hazard to health.

Marjorie Lundquist, Ph.D. (in physics), C.I.H.
Bioelectromagnetic Hygienist
P. O. Box 11831
Milwaukee, WI  53211-0831  USA
marjlundquist@email.com

Message from Roy Beavers


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