TO NUKE OR NOT TO NUKE

A study conducted in Switzerland could turn some heat on microwave ovens. Hans
U. Hertel, who ran the Environmental-Biological Research Laboratory in Wattenwil
until spring 1993, when he was appointed European president of the World
Foundation for Natural Science, claims to have detected some sinister changes in
the blood of people who eat microwaved foods.

In hundreds of trials, Hertel fed eight volunteers eight different foods--some
microwaved and some not--and then performed blood tests. In general, he reports,
the blood samples from the people who ate foods cooked or defrosted in a
microwave showed anemic tendencies and typical signs of stress. The volunteers'
erythrocytes (red blood cells), leukocytes (white blood cells), and cholesterol
increased--a strong sign of stress, Hertel says. At the same time, the
hemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying part of the blood) decreased. The reactions in
the blood were similar signs to those caused by exposure to chemicals or
technical radiation, Hertel says, and are ``indicative of an early pathogenic
process, as in fact it may occur at the actual start of cancer.''

Another researcher, however, says that Hertel's conclusions are half-baked.
Bernard Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and University in
Lausanne, who worked on the study with Hertel but dissociated himself from it
shortly thereafter, claims that Hertel is spreading ``fallacious information.''
Blanc disagrees vehemently with Hertel's conclusions and says the blood tests
didn't indicate a ``predisposition to the appearance of any pathological
state.''

At the least, Hertel counters, the study should motivate more research. ``Not
one other study has been done on the hazards of microwaves with regard to
radiated food,'' he says.