From https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Herman_Schwan_(1992) & https://repository.upenn.edu/be_papers/52/
Herman Paul Schwan [1915–2005], PhD Physics (1940) & Dr. habil. (1946)
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1938-1947: Schwan Worked for Nazi Scientists Before |
1950 to 1983: Schwan Directed A Biomedical EngineeringResearch Lab at University of Pennsylvania |
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Microwave Hazard & Safety Research
Nebeker:
What was the reason that most people were interested in the biological effects of high frequency fields?
Schwan:
That was an interest of the Navy that went back to the Second World War when some people were concerned about the dangers of radar equipment. After the war the Navy decided to look a little bit deeper into the general question of how radiation might effect people.
Nebeker:
So it was maybe not on every one of your research projects, but the ultimate motivation was specifically radar, the microwave frequency radiation?
Schwan:
Yes. I would say NIH primarily supported some of the basic research or electrical properties, while the Navy was primarily interested in practical applications; namely how non-ionizing radiation interacts with the human body. At that time there were very few people interested in that field. I was virtually alone when I developed this approach. The first open meeting about microwave hazards that took place in this country was in 1955 at the Mayo Clinic.
Nebeker:
Had the Navy set some kind of tolerance or safety standards for microwaves for radar workers during the war?
Schwan:
No, not during the war. The Navy held the first meeting to my knowledge in 1953. That was organized by the Office of Naval Research. There were just four people involved which was quite typical for the field at the time.
- Kenneth S. Cole, PhD in Physics, Cornell who trained as a biophysicist; from 1949 to 1954 he was the technical director of the Naval Medicine Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1954 he became chief of the laboratory of biophysics of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness. He achieved advances that led to the "sodium theory" of nerve transmission that later won Nobel Prizes for Alan L. Hodgkin and Andrew F. Huxley.
- James D. Hardy, MD, MA a man who knew a good deal about non-ionizing radiation in the infrared, from the University of Pennsylvania, Hardy served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in early 1944 during the Second World War. Hardy was awarded the Master of Medical Science in physiological chemistry by the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 for his research on using heavy water for measuring body fluids.
- David E. Goldman, PhD, a Navy Lieutenant and then a member of the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland who was Cole’s student at Columbia (PhD in 1943 in Physics); he was the one who had visited me in Frankfurt in 1945. The Goldman voltage equation, is used in cell membrane physiology to determine the reversal potential across a cell’s membrane, taking into account all of the ions that are permeant through that membrane.
- Hermann P. Schwan, PhD trained as biophysicist and biomedical engineer; Research Director at University of Pennsylvania, 1950-1983
There the first proposal for standards were made. The committee first decided that 100 milliwatts per square centimeter [100,000,000 µW/m²] would be the safety standard].
But then I went home, thought it over, and submitted a memorandum to the Navy suggesting ten milliwatts per square centimeter [10,000,000 µW/m²], which became the inside Navy standard for years to come.
S4WT: So, what did we eventually learn from the Naval Medicine Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland?
- Link to Zory Glaser Archives
- Link to Review of International Microwave Exposure Guidelines from 1957 to 1968
S4WT: What else do we know about Hermann P. Schwann?
Excerpts from "Going Somewhere: Truth About a Life in Science",
By Andrew A. Marino (2010), PhD Physics, JD, — along with S4WT commentary
Marino:
"The visiting professor was Herman Schwan, a handsome man with wavy gray hair and a youthful face. He spoke with a heavy German accent as he filled the blackboard with equations about the effects of microwaves on red blood cells. I had no way of knowing that a day would come when Schwan and I would clash in court over whose notion of science was correct, or that concerns regarding the biological effects of electromagnetic fields would turn out to be my life’s work . . . Herman Schwan was one of the first people to talk openly about biological effects of EMFs, but the gist of what he had said was that they couldn’t do anything to the cells in people. "
Marino, Andrew. Going Somewhere: Truth About a Life in Science (p. 34, 74). Cassandra Publishing. Kindle Edition.
S4WT Comment: Tens of thousands of peer-reviewed studies from the 1920’s to the early 1960’s already had proved that Scwhan’s hypothesis was wrong.
This has been confirmed time and time again in thousands of non-industry funded studies, from the 1960’s through 1920. The science is established; the politics surrounding exposures to Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) and pulsed, data-modulated, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) are not.
Barrie Trower on Densified 4G/5G and RF-EMR Exposures, Mar 5, 2020
- Trower was trained in government warfare; worked with underwater bomb disposal unit using microwaves
- In the 1970’s, Trower helped debrief spies In microwave warfare
- His 1st degree is in physics, specializing in microwaves; his 2nd degree is in research
- He has a teaching diploma in human physiology
- He took advanced math at South Dartmoor College
- Towner Authored the Tetra Report for the police federation: he predicted the illness of which officers and U.K. residents are now complaining
Barrie Trower at 1:49 in the video:
"Between 1949 and 1962, everything we needed to know about microwaves was known and published. By 1962 all of the dangers, all of the hazards, everything was known. When I say all of them, between the super powers and us [the U.K.], the brain at that time had been studied for brainwaves and microwaves could be used to penetrate the brain and cause behavioral changes.
And . . . with the resonance frequencies of the organs and the brain, the circadian rhythm frequencies, a statement was made in 1962 by the governments that birth defects, organs, whole organisms, cells, brain function, emotions, moods could be altered, changed and destroyed [by microwave exposures].
Microwaves then, as now, were used as stealth weapons, before they became cell phones [and Wi-Fi]. By 1965, the military used cell phones, I had one. The prospects of cell phones for the general public was seen as a lucrative market . . . the military and the industry of the USA, Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and other NATO countries knew they would not be allowed under the current safety limits [for RF-EMR exposures]. They needed a safety limit that could not be taken to court or challenged if this market were to progress.
In 1965, they adopted an old 1953 thermal-effects based level by an engineer by the name of Schwann. In order to prevent from being taken to court, the industry and the people who make the decisions, they adopted the Schwann 1953 level — a non-scientific "deemed safe" rule . . . They totally ignored the electromagnetic vectors of the microwaves and the harms that the electromagnetic vectors which interfere with the electrical conductivity of the cells, the neurons, the brain. They interfere with everything. This non-scientific RF-EMR exposure guideline is in force today for 40% of the planet. You really have no protection against the electric and magnetic vectors".
Dr. Andrew A. Marino on the Hazards of EMFs and RF Microwave Radiation
"The National Institutes of Health announced that grants would be provided for acupuncture studies, if the grantee promised to employ the methods of modern science. Dr. Robert O. Becker received one of these rare grants and we used the money to measure the electrical properties of acupuncture points and meridians which, we found, differed from other points on the body. That work provided the first evidence of the kind considered acceptable in the West that acupuncture points and meridians actually existed. We published six articles on acupuncture, but when the time came to apply for a renewal of the grant the window had closed. The National Institutes of Heath terminated all its acupuncture grants, including ours.
Marino, Andrew. Going Somewhere: Truth About a Life in Science (p. 79). Cassandra Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Then one of Dr. Becker’s neighbors developed cancer and asked Dr. Becker whether he thought the radio towers on the top of the hill where they lived could have been responsible. Dr. Becker learned that seven other neighbors had developed cancer, far more than would be expected in a rural area. When he plotted the addresses of the cancer cases on a contour map of the hill, he found a direct line of sight between each address and at least one of the towers, which he took to mean that the EMFs from the towers could have been involved in triggering the disease.
Marino, Andrew. Going Somewhere: Truth About a Life in Science (pp. 79-80). Cassandra Publishing. Kindle Edition.
One morning during breakfast I read the list of ingredients on a box of Cheerios and saw “BHT.” I wondered what it was, so I wrote General Mills and learned that the letters stood for butylated hydroxytoluene, which was added to increase the product’s shelf life by preventing bacterial growth. The reply said that BHT had no effect on people, and just passed through the body. I had several conversations with a lawyer at the Food and Drug Administration about BHT.
He told me that the law “deemed it safe” and would continue to do so unless someone presented “hard scientific evidence” to the contrary.
“What kind of evidence would be needed?” I asked.
“The law says that ‘no additive shall be deemed to be safe if it is found … to induce cancer in man or animal.’ So evidence that BHT causes cancer would suffice.”
“What does ‘deemed to be safe’ mean?”
“Something that’s safe as a matter of social policy, rather than scientific evidence.” His reply was straightforward, but not necessarily approving.
]
“Do you mean that the scientific evidence doesn’t matter?”“No, just that if there is none, or if it’s not definitive, the law fills in the gap and makes the decision.”
Before my involvement with BHT I had never imagined that “safety” could be simply an assumption, or that the Food and Drug Administration sometimes didn’t go beyond such assumptions. It was as if there were two kinds of truth, one based on evidence and a second based on “deeming.”
Marino, Andrew. Going Somewhere: Truth About a Life in Science (pp. 80-82). Cassandra Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Herman P. Schwan: Follow the money . . . Grants TBD
Herman P. Schwan: Follow the money . . . Expert Witness Fees TBD
Nebeker:
In 1952, you became a naturalized citizen.
Schwan:
Yes.
Nebeker:
Obviously you decided that you weren’t returning to Germany.
Schwan:
Right. Oh, may I show you something in this context? This little book is one of the things I’m sort of happy about. There were several distinct events. The first was, I believe you have that on tape, the meeting which had been called by the Navy. Shortly thereafter, a student and myself published a paper on standards in the Proceedings of the then-IRE. Then I published another paper in the IRE Transactions of medical electronics, recommending the ten milliwatts per square centimeter [10,000,000 µW/m²] standard. The Navy had adopted that standard — but there were no further activities in the field until the Mayo Clinic meeting, in 1955. But not too much happened until the Air Force became interested in the subject matter.
Nebeker:
Was the Navy the only one that had set a standard until the Air Force became interested?
Schwan:
Yes. In 1959 the National Standards Institute, at that time called ASA — American Standards Association, developed an interest in the field. They asked me to become chairman of a new committee to be established, the C-95 Committee. I chaired that committee for five or six years.
Nebeker:
What years were those?
Schwan:
That was ‘fifty-nine or ‘sixty to ‘sixty-five. It’s in my CV. The first thing I did was to divide the activity of the committee into four subcommittees. Subcommittee 4 was concerned with hazards to mankind. Other subcommittees were concerned with hazards to explosives and things like that. While I was chairman of the overall committee, I appointed Colonel North from the Air Force as chairman of Subcommittee 4, to explore the human exposure hazards. He had started a big research program at Rome Air Force base that distributed money to various universities. For various reasons not too much happened with the Subcommittee 4 under North. Eventually I assumed the chair of Subcommittee 4, in addition to my responsibility for the total committee. Then I appointed a small subcommittee which had a representative from the labor unions and included Goldman, Tom Ely, who had done a good job while he was in Bethesda, and Momford from Bell Laboratories, who had worked out a standard for Bell.
Nebeker:
Oh, they had a standard?
Schwan:
Yes.
Nebeker:
What was their standard?
Schwan:
Their standard was one milliwatt. We met together and worked out a proposal. After lengthy discussion the ten milliwatts per square centimeter standard was adopted by the total committee. It was the first general standard to be established. It was reconfirmed twice and then modified towards a somewhat more frequency-specific standard than it was originally.
Nebeker:
I could imagine that in the first years, there just wasn’t much research out there to base your decisions on.
Schwan:
Yes.
Nebeker:
But I assume more and more work was done?
Schwan:
Quite.
Nebeker:
Was there work done in other countries that was helpful to that section?
Schwan:
Not much. When I left, the related activities at the Frankfurt Institute continued with some people, but it was not highly effective, and eventually it completely ceased to exist there. There was some activity going on at Siemens Research Laboratories in Germany. That work was of good quality but primarily limited to diathermy developments, both microwave radio frequency and ultrasonic. You may have read about it in some of my articles. But that is all. It didn’t go beyond that. The real important work in dosimetry was done in this country — first by us, and then at the University of Washington, Seattle, by W. Guy. An article I wrote will appear in a special issue of the Bioelectromagnetics at the occasion of his retirement, as a Festschrift. It will be published in December ‘ninety-two. That is a special issue in honor of Guy, who retired from the University of Washington. He did excellent work. Then another strong group emerged in Salt Lake City. That group included Durney and Ghandi. Durney is a Mormon, and Ghandi’s from India. They are both members of the same department of electrical engineering. They have done excellent work, also.
Nebeker:
But the Siemens group did some work partly because of diathermy?
Schwan:
Primarily, yes. They developed some good diathermy equipment.
Nebeker:
Was the research in this country focused specifically on this question of the possible hazards of microwaves from radar? I’m wondering about the research that was of value to your committee in setting the standards.
Schwan:
I used a combination of fields. I used basic physiological knowledge about metabolic rates and tolerances of the human body with regard to heat as one yardstick. I learned a great deal about infrared and the thermal regulatory system of the body from Jim Hardy. I worked with him while he was still at Pennsylvania, before he left for Yale. The second input I had was based on our own work about the mode of propagation; namely, what percentage at what frequencies are reflected from the body surface, from the boundaries of subcutaneous tissues versus deep tissues and things like that. I concentrated on the effect of the curvature of the body, and measured microwave scattering cross sections of man. I call all of those studies macroscopic dosimetry. They provide details about how energy is distributed inside the body. That information pertains to standards. The diathermy experience provided a third body of knowledge. True, it’s not whole body radiation; it’s local body radiation. But nevertheless it gives you an idea of what can be tolerated by the human body. So in my deliberations I combined four different fields as I drew from the literature as it developed with time.
Nebeker:
Was this standard specifically for microwave frequencies?
Schwan:
Initially the standard was set to extend through the microwave range and the radio frequency range.
Nebeker:
Also radio frequency?
Schwan:
Yes. From 100 kilohertz or so up to 100 gigahertz. It didn’t go to low frequencies initially.
Nebeker:
People became concerned for safety standards in different frequency ranges. You said the initial concern in this country was specifically for radar. Were there any other electromagnetic fields in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties that people were concerned about?
Schwan:
Yes. People were not only suspicious about the radar frequency range, but were also concerned about any antenna system. You know, we all have some somewhere near our backyards. Recently I testified for Sun because they have a relay system. There is a tower in Valley Forge which picks up information from one direction, amplifies it, and sends it out further. A large part of the telephone system is carried that way by microwave beams. People living nearby relay towers worry about the extent to which this might affect them.
Nebeker:
Were there people concerned about radio frequency waves in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties?
Schwan:
Not in the ‘fifties. I would say concern over radio waves developed in the ‘sixties. Reports emerging from Russia. They had done research in the field, and had established hazard standards for both microwave and radio frequencies which were about 1,000-fold lower than those I had recommended — microwatt instead of milliwatt. That shook some people very much, and they wondered about it. A number of people paid more and more attention to the Russian literature, and things started to backfire. The press became interested. Then the microwave oven came. Consumer Reports issued a warning that people should not purchase microwave ovens.
Nebeker:
What was your estimation of this Russian research?
Schwan:
I didn’t think much about it. Let me be more precise. My counterpart in Russia was a Dr. Gordon, a woman whom I met several times. She was a very pleasant and kind woman, for whom I have high personal regards. I met her at international meetings on medical electronics and biomedical engineering in London in ‘sixty and in Paris in fifty-nine and New York in ‘sixty-one. I worked closely with her in 1973 at a meeting in Poland, where we compromised our points of view and drafted recommendations for the World Health Organization. I was aware of the Russian work. I got many of her publications from meetings she organized in Russia. Most of the work they did reported effects in the range between one and ten milliwatts per square centimeter. But then they applied safety factors of 10s and 100s, thereby coming down. The effects, ranging from one to ten milliwatts per square centimeter, were subtle but important.
Nebeker:
I see. You knew what evidence they were basing their standards on?
Schwan:
I think so. I knew a great deal about the Russian work — probably more at the time than other Americans. I was well informed.
Nebeker:
But that didn’t change your estimation of what was a safe level?
Schwan:
No.
Nebeker:
I want to try to stay in chronological order a bit. In the ‘fifties you were successful in getting funding from ONR, NIH and the Air Force?
Schwan:
Yes.
Nebeker:
You said at one point that the Air Force was interested in more practical questions.
Schwan:
ONR was interested in the electromagnetic hazard area, like the Army. NIH supports more basic work with electric properties. The Air Force supported the acoustics work during the 1950s. . . . the Navy effort and the NIH effort extended up to almost my retirement. In other words, both efforts were supported for more than a quarter of a century. They were long-range efforts.
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