Maxwell's Silver Hammer 291
ELF antenna caused a 50-percent rise in triglycerides in nine of ten human
subjects. The NAS committee's conclusion that this early result didn't
stand up was based on subsequent Navy work, mainly the faulty
Mathewson study. Adequate follow-up by a disinterested group has
never been funded, even though Beischer's finding agrees completely
with Russian studies and the reinterpreted Mathewson data on animals.
This doesn't exhaust the list of microwave metabolic effects reported
behind the Iron Curtain. Dumansky found widespread changes in the
liver function of rats exposed to low levels of microwaves that were sched-
uled to approximate the pattern of mealtime exposure from microwave
ovens. Others detected vitamin B2 and B6 depletion from blood, brain,
liver, kidneys, and heart, as well as major shifts in trace-metal metabo-
lism in response to low levels of microwaves. The distribution of copper,
manganese, molybdenum, nickel, and iron was affected throughout the
bodies of rats. Similar trace-metal changes were recorded after exposure to
ELF electric fields for four months, even at moderate field strengths for
only half an hour per day. Since B6 is essential to the utilization of
carbohydrates, fat, and protein, and since the trace metals act as catalysts
in a wide variety of biochemical reactions, these observations may explain
some of the other metabolic changes.
There are indications that some types of electropollution directly de-
crease the efficiency of the heart. Several research groups in Poland, the
Soviet Union, Italy, and the United States have studied pulse, elec-
trocardiogram, blood pressure, and reserve capacity (the heart's ability to
handle exertion) in animals. Microwaves and 50-hertz electric fields both
produced similar changes that persisted throughout long-term exposure.
These included bradycardia (decreased pulse), a huge reduction (40 to 50
percent) in the strength of the electrical impulses governing contraction
of the heart muscle, a decline in reserve capacity, and a short-term rise
followed by a long-term fall in blood pressure. In general, these decre-
ments occurred in both "domestic" (0.5 volts per centimeter) and "in-
dustrial" (50 volts per centimeter or more) electric fields and at
microwave power densities of 150 microwatts, well within the amount
received by many people from radar beams and microwave ovens.
In humans, confirmatory evidence for these effects comes from several
Russian studies of workers in high-voltage power station switchyards. In
the first such group examined, forty-one of forty-five had some sign of
nervous or cardiovascular disease, including
bradycardia,
instability of
pulse and blood pressure, and tremors. The same health problems were
found
in four additional studies of nearly seven
hundred more workers.