Are microwaves dangerous?
I've heard both sides, and I want to know whether they're dangerous. I found on a website (http://www.relfe.com/microwave.html) that: "MICROWAVE COOKING is Killing People! By Stephanie Relfe B.Sc. (Sydney) Microwave cooking is one of the most important causes of ill health. It is certainly one of the most ignored. There was a lawsuit in 1991 in Oklahoma. A woman named Norma Levitt had hip surgery, but was killed by a simple blood transfusion when a nurse "warmed the blood for the transfusion in a microwave oven!" Logic suggests that if heating is all there is to microwave cooking, then it doesn't matter how something is heated. Blood for transfusions is routinely warmed, but not in microwave ovens. Does it not therefore follow that microwaving cooking does something quite different? A little evidence of the harm caused by microwaving cooking was given by the University of Minnesota in a radio announcement: "Microwaves ... are not recommended for heating a baby's bottle. The bottle may seem cool to the touch, but the liquid inside may become extremely hot and could burn the baby's mouth and throat... Heating the bottle in a microwave can cause slight changes in the milk. In infant formulas, there may be a loss of some vitamins. In expressed breast milk, some protective properties may be destroyed.... Warming a bottle by holding it under tap water or by setting it in a bowl of warm water, then testing it on your wrist before feeding, may take a few minutes longer, but it is much safer". There have been very few scientific studies done on the effect of eating food microwaved food. This is rather surprising when you think about the fact that microwaves have been with us for only a few decades - and that in that time the incidence of many diseases has continued to increase. Two researchers, Blanc and Hertel, confirmed that microwave cooking significantly changes food nutrients. Hertel previously worked as a food scientist for several years with one of the major Swiss food companies. He was fired from his job for questioning procedures in processing food because they denatured it. He got together with Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Biochemistry and the University Institute for Biochemistry. They studied the effect that microwaved food had on eight individuals, by taking blood samples immediately after eating. They found that after eating microwaved food, haemoglobin levels decreased. "These results show anaemic tendencies. The situation became even more pronounced during the second month of the study". Who knows what results they would have found if they had studied people who ate microwaved food for a year or more? The violent change that microwaving causes to the food molecules forms new life forms called radiolytic compounds. These are mutations that are unknown in the natural world. Ordinary cooking also causes the formation of some radiolytic compounds (which is no doubt one reason why it is better to eat plenty of raw food), but microwaving cooking causes a much greater number. This then causes deterioration in your blood and immune system. Lymphocytes (white blood cells) also showed a more distinct short-term decrease following the intake of microwaved food than after the intake of all the other variants. Another change was a decrease in the ratio of HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) values. Each of these indicators pointed to degeneration The results were published in "Search for Health" in the Spring of 1992. How was this research greeted? A powerful trade organisation, the Swiss Association of Dealers for Electroapparatuses for Households and Industry somehow made the President of the Court of Seftigen issue a `gag order'. Hertel and Blanc were told that if they published their findings they would face hefty fines or up to one year in prison. In response to this, Blanc recanted his findings. Hertel, on the other hand, went on a lecture tour and demanded a jury trial. FINALLY, in 1998 the Court `Gag Order' was removed. In a judgment delivered at Strasbourg on 25 August 1998 in the case of Hertel v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been a violation of Hertel's rights in the 1993 decision. The Court decided that the `gag order' prohibiting him form declaring that microwaved food is dangerous to health was contrary to the right to freedom of expression. In addition, Switzerland was sentenced to pay compensation of F40,000. RUSSIANS BAN MICROWAVE OVENS After the World War II, the Russians also experimented with microwave ovens. From 1957 up to recently, their research has been carried out mainly at the Institute of Radio Technology at Klinsk, Byelorussia. According to US researcher William Kopp, who gathered much of the results of Russian and German research - and was apparently prosecuted for doing so 1. Heating prepared meats in a microwave sufficiently for human consumption created: * d-Nitrosodiethanolamine (a well-known cancer-causing agent) * Destabilization of active protein biomolecular compounds * Creation of a binding effect to radioactivity in the atmosphere * Creation of cancer-causing agents within protein-hydrosylate compounds in milk and cereal grains; 2. Microwave emissions also caused alteration in the catabolic (breakdown) behavior of glucoside - and galactoside - elements within frozen fruits when thawed in this way; 3. Microwaves altered catabolic behavior of plant-alkaloids when raw, cooked or frozen vegetables were exposed for even very short periods; 4. Cancer-causing free radicals were formed within certain trace-mineral molecular formations in plant substances, especially in raw root vegetables; 5. Ingestion of micro-waved foods caused a higher percentage of cancerous cells in blood; 6. Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions occur
Chemistry - 1 Answers
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it all depends how you use them . but i can see how , if used wrong, there is a great potential for getting seriously hurt maybe not killed, but hurt
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