Maxwell's Silver Hammer 305
fessor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biophysics in Germany during
most of the Nazi era, Schwan was admitted to the United States in
1947, soon accepted a post at the University of Pennsylvania, and since
then has done most of his research for the Department of Defense.
Like infrared radiation, radio waves and microwaves produce heat
when they're absorbed in sufficient quantity. Although not a biologist,
Schwan assumed this heating was the only effect EMR would have on
living tissue. In this respect he considered living things no different
from the hot dogs that World War II radarmen used to roast in their
microwave beams, so cooking was the only harm he foresaw. Schwan
then estimated danger levels based on how much energy was needed to
measurably heat metal balls and beakers of salt water, which he used to
represent the size and presumed electrical characteristics of various ani-
mals.
Appreciable heating occurred in these models only at levels of
100,000 microwatts or above, so, incorporating a safety factor of ten,
Schwan in 1953 proposed an exposure limit of 10,000 microwatts for
humans. By showing soon afterward that it took more than this inten-
sity to cause burns in real animals, Sol Michaelson seemed to have con-
firmed the safety of "nonthermal" dosages. No one tested for subtler
effects, and the 10,000-microwatt level was uncritically accepted on an
informal basis by industry and the military. In 1965 the Army and Air
Force formally adopted the Schwan limit, and a year later the industry-
sponsored American National Standards Institute recommended it as a
guideline for worker safety.
There were persuasive economic
reasons why the 10,000-microwatt
standard was and still is defended at all costs. Lowering it would have
curtailed the expansion of military EMR use and cut into the profits of
the corporations that supplied the hardware. A reduced standard now
would constitute an admission that the old one was unsafe, leading to
liability for damage claims from ex-GIs and industrial workers. One of
the strongest monetary reasons was given in a 1975 classified summary
of the DOD's Tri-Service Electromagnetic Radiation Bioeffects Research
Plan: "These [lower] standards will significantly restrict the military use
of EMR in a peacetime environment and require the procurement of
substantial real estate around ground-based EMR emitters to provide
buffer zones." The needed real estate was estimated to be 498,000 acres.
The price of this much land would surely run well into the billions of
dollars.
Even before it was adopted, there were indications that the standard
might be inadequate. During the obligatory fight for compensation in