Biological effect of electromagnetic fields: New findings linking changes in organisms to irradiation by weak fields encourage researchers to posit theories, although research is incomplete

In the past three years, the study of the biological effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic (EM) fields has taken a new turn. At the beginning of the 1980s, researchers still argued about whether all effects of fields on organisms were caused simply by the heating induced by intense radiation or if some effects also occurred at field strengths too low to produce even localized heating. Although laboratory results had by that time convinced some researchers that athermal effects-those that could not be explained by heating - did in fact occur, a vocal group of scientists still doubted that these laboratory results were valid and repeatable.