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An Interview with Louis Slesin
Casey Walker: Will you describe why you founded Microwave News: A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation ?
Louis Slesin: I got started in the 1970s, when there were no independent sources of information that could be trusted. Finding out what was going on was like playing the game "Telephone," in which one child whispers a message into another child's ear, and that child whispers it to the next, and so on down the line. By the time it reaches the last child, the message is totally garbled. This was what was going on in the EMF community. Everything you heard had to be checked and double-checked.
At the time, I was working at an environmental law firm on EMFs and a number of other issues, including the regulation of toxic chemicals and genetic engineering. I realized that if I wanted to work on EMFs full-time, which I did, I'd either have to become a consultant—and we all know the rules for making it as a consultant: Do as you're told—or I could try the newsletter business. With the newsletter approach, I'd be able to provide a service. I'd be able to tell people what was really happening. That's the route I took.
Will you speak to the concerns you recognized—which questions were not being asked or pursued in the public realm?
What was going on in those days—and it continues today—is that every time a biomedical or scientific breakthrough raises important public health questions, there is very little follow-up. Sometimes there's none at all.
A good example is the question of whether microwaves can affect the blood-brain barrier. In 1975, Allan Frey showed that fairly low levels of microwave radiation could increase the permeability of the blood-brain barrier. Chemicals in the blood that weren't supposed to go into the brain could do so following microwave irradiation. This raises an obvious question: What might these chemicals do once they cross into the brain?
Back in those days, some of the classic effects of microwave radiation were being reported in the Russian and East European biomedical literature. Those exposed to radar and communication radiation in the military or on the job were complaining of headaches, mood swings, and insomnia. Chemicals crossing the blood-brain barrier may not in fact cause such symptoms, but it's certainly a good place to start. READ MORE: HTML/ PDF
Related: EMF Science and Eco-Phenomenology
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"An Interview
With Louis Slesin"
Read: Interview HTML/PDF
Listen: PODCAST
Ask: Your questions here.
Louis Slesin, Ph.D., is the editor of www.MicrowaveNews.com; and the founding editor and publisher of Microwave News, a bimonthly newsletter on the biological effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, with special emphasis on power lines and cellular phones. He received a MA in Chemical Physics from Columbia University, New York City, New York and a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy from M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to founding Microwave News he was a scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, specializing in regulations of toxic chemicals, recombinant DNA technology and non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation. Slesin is widely published, with articles in journals such as Technology Review, Columbia Journalism Review, Family Circle, Computerworld, The Nation, Whole Earth Review, Amicus Journal, Ecology Law Quarterly, Mothering, Institutional Investor, Environment and Architectural Forum.
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