Paul Brodeur’s full statement to HuffPost is below:
In a piece entitled “17 Best Movie Moments of 2013” that appeared in the Huffington Post on January 6, 2014, Christopher Rosen, a senior entertainment editor, includes a trailer from the film “American Hustle,” which states that Paul Brodeur has written in a magazine that a microwave oven “takes all of the nutrition out of food.” This is a serious error. I have never written in The New Yorker, where I was a staff writer for nearly forty years, or in any other magazine, or declared in any way that a microwave oven does any such thing. Indeed, I have publicly stated the opposite. (See People magazine, Vol. 9, No. 4, January 30, 1978.)
However, I was the first journalist to write at length about the adverse health effects of microwave radiation (see The New Yorker, December 13 and 20, 1976, and books entitled The Zapping of America, W.W. Norton, 1977; Currents of Death, Simon and Schuster, 1989; and Secrets, A Writer in the Cold War, Faber and Faber, 1997.) I have also spoken publicly about the microwave radiation hazard.
In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion of and study about the microwave radiation emitted by cell phones. It is an established fact that when one is transmitting from a cell phone held to the ear, microwave radiation can penetrate deeply into the brain. Much controversy surrounds the biological effects of such penetration.
In 2011, a committee of scientists and medical doctors from 14 nations, which was established by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyons, issued a joint statement that long-term use of cell phones may lead to two different types of tumors–glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, and tumors of the inner ear. Their decision was based upon an evaluation of six major studies showing a possible association between wireless phone use and brain tumors. The chairman of the committee was Jonathan Samet, a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who has been appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board by President Obama.
A neurosurgeon who was a member of the committee said, “What microwave radiation does in most simplistic terms is similar to what happens to food in microwaves, essentially cooking the brain.”
In France, the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety has recommended limiting exposure to radiation from mobile phones, particularly for children and intensive users.
Swedish scientists have determined that people who started using mobile phones before the age of 20 are experiencing more than a five-fold risk of developing malignant tumors of the brain, and a similar risk of developing tumors of the inner ear.
It has been estimated that nine out of ten 16-year-olds in developed nations either use or own a mobile phone.
Much more evidence exists to demonstrate the health hazards of microwave radiation, but the above should encourage people to take precautions — either by texting or by using ear phones or by sharply limiting their use of cell phones—and to mistrust the cell telephone industry’s spurious claims that microwave radiation emitted by the devices cannot cause harm.
The most authoritative source of information about the microwave radiation hazard in recent years has been Louis Slesin, founder, editor, and publisher of Microwave News. He can be reached at microwavenews.com.
