Microwaves in the cold war: the Moscow embassy study and its interpretation.

Bron 1: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/

Environ Health. 2012; 11: 85.
Published online 2012 Nov 14. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-11-85
PMCID: PMC3509929

Microwaves in the cold war: the Moscow embassy study and its interpretation. Review of a retrospective cohort study

J Mark Elwood
Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, Mail Centre 1142, New Zealand

Abstract
Background

From 1953 to 1976, beams of microwaves of 2.5 to 4.0 GHz were aimed at the US embassy building in Moscow. An extensive study investigated the health of embassy staff and their families, comparing Moscow embassy staff with staff in other Eastern European US embassies. The resulting large report has never been published in peer reviewed literature.

Methods

The original report and other published comments or extracts from the report were reviewed.

Results

The extensive study reports on mortality and morbidity, recorded on medical records and by regular examinations, and on self-reported symptoms. Exposure levels were low, but similar or greater than present-day exposures to radiofrequencies sources such as cell phone base stations. The conclusions were that no adverse health effects of the radiation were shown. The study validity depends on the assumption that staff at the other embassies were not exposed to similar radiofrequencies. This has been questioned, and other interpretations of the data have been presented.

Conclusions

The conclusions of the original report are supported. Contrary conclusions given in some other reports are due to misinterpretation of the results.

Keywords: Radiofrequencies, Cancer, Health, Cohort study

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Bron 2: forum.jackkruse.com/index.php?threads%2Fthe-moscow-signal-experiment-of-the-us-embassy.9559%2F .

The Moscow Signal Experiment of the US Embassy
Discussion in 'The EMF Rx' started by Jack Kruse, Feb 2, 2014.

This is an old story but one that many readers will be unfamiliar with, it illustrates that experiments in the electromagnetic 'Dark Arts' has been going on for at least half a century. It is widely reported and accepted that the Soviets started bombarding the American Embassy in Moscow in 1953 with 'microwaves', which continued for thirty years. In 1962 the CIA decided to officially investigate the Moscow ''signal'', so in 1965 the U.S. government funded Project Pandora, ''a top secret multi-million dollar program''. Top scientific experts were consulted by the American Government ''about the meaning of microwaving'' the Moscow Embassy. Dr. Robert Becker, was asked if central nervous system, CNS disturbances occur by microwave radiation. The Pandora Project found that the microwave radiation interferes with decision making capacity, causes chronic stress and low efficiency. The white blood count of Embassy workers was 40% higher than normal. Monkeys exposed to microwave radiation showed a marked decreased performance of simple tasks.

Nothing was publicly revealed to the U.S. public until 1976 when stories started circulating in the Boston Globe. Dr. Becker states in a 1984 TV documentary that the U.S. couldn't say anything about it because safety standards for the U.S. were higher than the microwave signals used by the Soviets on the Moscow Embassy. If the U.S. admitted bioeffects or athermal effects, (non heating), from the radiation, such as a high white blood count, it would throw into doubt the U.S. standard set ''rather arbitrarily '' in the 1950s. It would also be an embarrassment to the Americans who chose to keep the public in the dark about the microwaving of the Moscow Embassy from 1953 to 1975. So, in 1976 the embassy employees found out that they were being used as guinea pigs when the US decided to install defensive screens to protect personnel, a situation roundly condemned in an official report. Consequently without admitting liability, the state department eventually tried to appease the embassy staff by re-grading Moscow posts as carrying an extra health risk and gave all staff a 20% salary rise … a number of staff tried to sue the US Government…'

Neil Cherry in his mammoth 2000 report (review of 188 research papers on EMR for the New Zealand government), included the Moscow Embassy affair in his analysis of the harmful affects of EMR. He wrote that the employees and dependants were studied for possible health effects from the radar exposure (Cherry disputes the ''microwave'' description for the EMR detected), by a team from the John Hopkins University under the direction of highly respected epidemiologist, Professor Abraham Lilienfeld. Dr Lilienfeld noted that the group was quite small and the follow-up time too short to generally identify significant health effects such as cancer. He thus recommended that continued health status surveillance should be carried out. This was not done. The incidence of sickness and death were compare with the average US rates for similar age groups for both the Moscow Embassy and other Eastern European Embassies. Cherry writes there was great pressure for the group not to identify adverse health effects. Dr Herbert Pollack, the U.S. State Department Contract Officer is recorded to have changed the conclusions of the report, Goldsmith (1995a, 1997). Despite the small numbers, the Lilienfeld data shows a significant increases in:

Cardiac symptoms
Neurological and psychological symptoms
Altered blood cell counts
Increased chromosome aberrations, and
Elevated cancer in children and adults
Sickness increasing in a dose-response manner with years of residence.
These symptoms are associated with chronic exposure to very low intensity pulsed microwaves in the range < 0.04 to 0.2(W/cm2).
Cherry concludes that, 'In a sense too, the fact that the State Department case officer, Dr Herbert Pollack, altered the conclusions, attests to the significance of this study, the results of which would be embarrassing to the U.S. Government, both in terms of compensation and in terms of the validity of the U.S. exposure standard.'

The 1984 BBC documentary 'Opening Pandora's Box' explained how the safety standards for electromagnetic radiation, EMR, were set higher in the 1950s to allow the military to have unlimited use of EMR technology. At the time, American science reports suggesting EMR health effects of brain tumours, heart conditions, leukaemia, cataracts and more, but these were ignored. The military was a major source of funding and so reports were not followed up. Microwave News, a journal on nonionizing radiation, reported that radar men, air traffic controllers and police officers filed complaints. These court cases revolved around the validity of the safety standard. Dr. Milton Zaret, (famous Scarsdale eye doctor who linked RADAR TO cataract formation) another Pandora scientist explained that most government committees, who set the safety standards around the world, were set up in the same way as in the U.S. Members of the committee did not want to impede or put restraints on progress by tightening the safety standards for EMR. This is illustrated by government action, as follows. As part of Project Pandora, the U.S. government conducted Operation Big Boy on Navy ships to find any health effects from radar equipment on the ships. When effects were found, the government terminated the project.

Dr. Becker stated that there was tremendous growth of the communications and power industries and a complete lack of information or even consideration of EMR health risks. Industry didn't consider bioeffects of EMR until the mid seventies. There was a ''complete lack of consideration'' of any biological effects from electromagnetic radiation and the repeated dogma was there are ''no possible biological effects.'' Then there were concerns over complaints and the subsequent study results on computer VDTs and miscarriages and birth defects and powerline exposure and leukaemia in adults and children living near them. Studies reported a high incidences of suicide in people living near power lines. Other studies reported that electrical workers were at risk for leukemia. Meanwhile, the U.S. standard had been virtually unchanged since the 1950s. In comparison the Soviet standard was originally 1000 times lower than the U.S position. The targetting of the Moscow Embassy highlighted the fact that very small dosages of EMR can have long term harmful effects, which are still officially denied even today.

Adam D, Computerising the body: Microsoft wins patent to exploit network potential of skin Fact or fiction - carrying a keyboard on your arm, The Guardian, Tuesday July 6, 2004

www.rense.com/general3/patent.htm

The skinny on IT: The human body as a computer bus, From The Economist print edition Jul 1st 2004 www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2876950

O'Farrell J, Gates of hell, If Microsoft gets its way, we will all be hooked on computers - literally, The Guardian, Saturday July 10, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1258193,00.html



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