Value chain · CLM-1336
Low confidence
The evidence behind this statement is thin, indirect or second-hand. Read it as a lead to check, not as a settled finding.
In plain terms
An old reviewer's note says the US microwave limit came mainly from a heat-balance calculation for an average man, after an earlier limit ten times higher, and not from laboratory evidence of harm.
The claim as recorded
An unsigned critique of a draft ANSI C95.4 subcommittee report on research needs disputes the draft's statement that the US standard came primarily from tissue-heating research. It says the standard came from a calculation of the maximum and minimum metabolic heat output of an average 70 kg man and the microwave input that would or would not raise whole-body temperature. It says an earlier figure of 100 mW/cm2 was used for the US Navy for a while and later reduced to 10 mW/cm2, and that the standard also rested on limited occupational surveys that had found no particular harmful effects. It states that neither the Soviet nor the US standard is based primarily on research data, but principally on accumulated occupational health surveys and applied and basic research. It suggests the draft drop its "arbitrarily chosen" 10 mW/cm2 low-level boundary unless limited to man, as such divisions are not uniform across species.
Evidence behind this: T3 (typescript tier, coord ruling 2026-10-03), an unsigned and undated typescript critique with no issuing body printed; it permits only "an undated critique of the ANSI C95.4 research-needs draft states Y". It cites no source for its account of the standard's origin.
Scope and limits
Authors, body and date are not printed, so the account cannot be weighed against its authors' role; treat as a voice, not as a history of the standard. No primary document on the origin of the 10 mW/cm2 figure is held to check it. The draft report it critiques is not held. The OCR text layer is unusable; quotations are from renders read by eye.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
PDF p.2 / printed 1: the standard "originated from a calculation based on maximum and minimum metabolic heat production by the body of an 'average' 70 kg man"; an earlier "figure of 100 mW/cm2 for the U. S. Navy" later "reduced to 10 mW/cm2". PDF p.3 / printed 2: "Standards of neither the Soviet nor the U. S. are based primarily on research data per se"; the 10 mW/cm2 low-level boundary called "arbitrarily chosen".
Basis: mW/cm2
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-001 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1336
CLM-1336, Energy Aperture, as of undated.