Value chain · CLM-1341
In plain terms
In a year-long experiment from the early 1960s, mice given a short daily microwave dose that warmed them by about 3 degrees lived as long as unexposed mice, but more of them showed testicular damage. A link with white-blood-cell cancers appeared in two comparisons and not in a third.
The claim as recorded
A 1962 paper in IRE Transactions on Bio-Medical Electronics reports a 59-week study in which 200 male mice were exposed to 3.2 cm (9.27 GHz) pulsed microwaves at 0.100 W/cm2 for 4.5 minutes a day, 5 days a week, against 100 controls. Each exposure raised body temperature by 3.3 deg C on average. Longevity was not affected, and no changes in body weight, temperature response or blood picture were evident. Among mice that died and could be examined, testicular degeneration was found in 40 per cent of irradiated and 8 per cent of control mice, and white-cell cancers in 35 and 10 per cent. In the second sacrifice series, 30 per cent of irradiated and 10 per cent of control mice had a leucosis. In the final sacrifice series, 21 per cent of irradiated and 5 per cent of control mice showed tubular atrophy, while abdominal lymphoma was found in 18 and 21 per cent, so that series showed no link with leucosis. In the acute calibration, half the mice died if body temperature rose 6.7 deg C, and densities below 0.068 W/cm2 caused no acute deaths.
Evidence behind this: T1, a measured result in a peer-reviewed IRE journal with calibration and method described; no statistical tests are reported. Air Force funded.
Scope and limits
A heating regime: each dose raised body temperature by 2 to 5 deg C, so the study says nothing about low-level exposure. Of 300 mice, 132 were sacrificed and 68 dead mice were too decayed to examine, so the death findings rest on 100 animals. Pneumonia affected part of the colony in the last 3 months. The paper gives the LD50 time at 0.100 W/cm2 as 12 minutes and, on the same page, 9 minutes; the daily dose is called half the LD50 on the 9-minute figure. No statistical tests are reported. Mice at X band; no scaling to people or to 2.45 GHz is given. The printed page for PDF p.2 is inferred from PDF p.4 = printed 106; PDF p.3 = printed 105 is confirmed at the render, where both LD50 times appear.
What it assumes
Incident density at the cage from a horn calibrated by field-pattern integration (0.146 W/cm2 at the full 25 W, p.2); cage rotated at 1 rpm, power drop across it no more than 1 dB.
Where it comes from
PDF p.2 / printed 104: "Two hundred males were exposed daily for 59 weeks to 0.100 w/cm2 for 4.5 minutes" (normalised); "average body temperature rise of 3.3 deg C" (normalised); "Longevity of the mice did not appear to be affected"; source "9270 Mc" with "a duty cycle of 0.001". PDF p.3 / printed 105: "50 per cent of the mice died if their body temperature reached 44.1 deg C, or 6.7 deg C above normal" (normalised); "power densities below 0.068 w/cm2 did not cause acute deaths" (normalised); LD50 "by exposure to 0.100 w/cm2 for 12 minutes"; procedure: "9 minutes of irradiation at this power density causes 50 per cent of deaths" (normalised). PDF p.5 / printed 107: testicular degeneration "in 40 per cent of the dead irradiated mice and in only 8 per cent of the controls"; white-cell cancer "in 35 per cent of the irradiated mice and in 10 per cent of the controls"; second sacrifice series, "30 per cent of the irradiated and 10 per cent of the control mice had a leucosis". PDF p.6 / printed 108: "21 per cent of the irradiated and 5 per cent of the controls"; lymphoma in "12 treated (18 per cent) and 4 control (21 per cent) mice".
Basis: W/cm2 incident; minutes per day; per cent of examined mice
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-001 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1341
CLM-1341, Energy Aperture, as of 1962-04.