Maxwell's Silver Hammer 295
reason), they're still far higher than before World War II. These diseases
exist at more or less the same rates in countries whose chemical toxicity,
eating habits, and styles of life are widely divergent. However, the mas-
sive use of electromagnetic energy is a common denominator uniting all
of the developed nations. In particular, the entire North American
continent, Western Europe, and Japan generate such strong 50- and 60-
hertz fields that they can be sensed by satellites in space. The popula-
tions of these areas are continuously bombarded by these ELF fields.
Disruption of the biocycle timing cues must inevitably make it harder
for the body to regulate the mitotic rate of its cells. The major exception
to the "no effect" assurances in the NAS Sanguine-Seafarer report was
unignorable evidence that 75-hertz fields lengthened the mitotic cycle
and hindered cell respiration of the slime mold used in standard tests of
cellular growth. The same effects were seen regardless of field strength.
Hence we should expect that ELF pollution would foster diseases in
which growth processes go awry.
Indeed there has been an alarming increase in such problems. Cancer
is hardly a novel illness, but its prevalence is new. In the mid-1960s
roughly a quarter of the U.S. population could expect to develop it. By
the mid-1970s, that figure had risen to one third, and it's now even
higher. The incidence of birth defects has doubled in the past quarter
century. There has been a similarly rapid rise in infertility and other
reproductive problems.
Rarer defects of cell division may be on the increase as well, expecially
among workers exposed by occupation to high levels of electromagnetic
energy. Pathologist Hylar Friedman of the Army Medical Center in El
Paso reported in 1981 that radar technicians were three to twelve times
more likely than the rest of the population to get polycythemia, a rare
blood disorder characterized by production of too many red blood cells.
Such relationships are hard to confirm statistically, however, in diseases
affecting small numbers of people. We need direct experimental evi-
dence and large-scale studies on the widespread disorders. Both are now
available.
Back in 1971, two more Soviet researchers, S. G. Mamontov and L.
N. Ivanova, reported that industrial-strength 50-hertz electric fields tri-
pled the mitotic rate of liver and cornea cells in mice. Soon afterward,
Bassett and Pilla published empirical evidence that pulsed EMFs acceler-
ated the healing of bone fractures. For the most part, however, concrete
evidence that time-varying fields could affect cell division was slow in
coming.