From: music@reg.triumf.ca (FRED W. BACH)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.skeptic,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: The dangers in microwaved food...
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:17:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
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In article <1992Aug26.234714.29099@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes...
>In article <1992Aug26.213345.10592@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug26.022134.29183@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
> 
>>)>I don't recall anything like that.  I recall now that there was a problem
>>)>with cataracts at *really* high levels, but I believe that was still believed
>>)>to be due to the heating effects.
>>)
>>)    I do not know of any such effect either, except for the fact that
>>)    arms and legs and eyeballs have marvelous dimensions for developing hot
>>)    spots under 2.45 GHz irradiation (especially eyeballs).  Babies
>>)    heads have this same property, though most adults have heads
>>)    that are too large to build up any substantial hot spots except
>>)    in their eyes (c.f. Taflove and Brodwin, IEEE Microwave Theory and
>>)    Techniques MTT-23:888 (1975)).
>>)
>>)    Of course, the input power would have to be substantial in order to have
>>)    any significant heat generation.
>>)
>>)    Just another reason to keep kids and hammers away from your microwave...
>>
>>There was a case someone brought up in the talk where I heard about the topic
>>(this was brought up by someone in the audience, not the speaker) where a
>>hospital patient developed cataracts after exposure to a malfunctioning
>>diathermy machine which put out too much power.  This was not a
>>low-level/long term risk sort of thing at all.  Nor was it necessarily
>>repeatable.
>>
> 
>     You are probably right about heating causing this.  I suspect that
>     with some of the hot spots that can be developed in eyeballs
>     (combined with the scarcity of bloodflow compared to many other
>     parts of the body) that heating due to a faulty diathermy machine
>     could build up rapidly enough to cause the proteins in the lens
>     to denature.
> 
>     As far as repeating it, let us hope not.
> 
>                                dale bass
> 
>-- 
>C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
>Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
>University of Virginia
>Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926

   Dear sci.physics types,

     I have not caught this thread from the beginning, but there is
    a notable series of experiments done on young mammals and other
    animals who were fed cobalt-60 irradiated food.  The young developed
    a statistically higher percentage of some cellular disorder called
    <now I'm not sure of the spelling or pronunciation> hyperplasia
    in which the cells just grew bigger instead of dividing.

     I believe the study was done by a female doctor from India
     but memory fades here.  There was a bit on it on local TV
     a few years ago.   I believe the study was repeated, and it 
     could not be demonstrated that the effect was bogus, nor could
     it be proven by large enough statistics (how _do_ you get data
     like that on human babies?) that the effect was applicable to
     human babies.    Seems like there was no effect on any
     adults of any species, if I remember correctly.

     Has anyone repeated these tests with *microwaved* food instead
     of gamma-irradiated food???







 Fred W. Bach ,    Operations Group        |  Internet: music@erich.triumf.ca
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