OVERVIEW OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION HAZARDS STANDARDIZATION PROGRAM
CAINE, S. · 1973
The 1973 DoD standardization program shows military recognition of EMF health hazards decades before civilian agencies.
Plain English Summary
This 1973 Department of Defense technical report examined the military's program for standardizing electromagnetic radiation hazard protocols and safety measures. The study focused on developing consistent approaches to protect military personnel from EMF exposure across different defense operations. This represents early institutional recognition of electromagnetic radiation as a potential occupational health concern.
Why This Matters
What makes this 1973 DoD report particularly significant is that it shows the military recognized electromagnetic radiation hazards decades before civilian health agencies took similar action. The reality is that military personnel often face much higher EMF exposures than civilians - from radar systems, communications equipment, and electronic warfare devices that can generate power levels thousands of times stronger than your cell phone. The fact that the Department of Defense felt compelled to create standardization programs suggests they had documented health effects serious enough to warrant systematic protection protocols. This early military awareness contrasts sharply with today's regulatory agencies, which continue to rely on decades-old safety standards that ignore non-thermal biological effects. You don't have to work on a military base to benefit from understanding that if the DoD was concerned about EMF hazards in 1973, perhaps civilian exposure standards deserve the same level of scrutiny.
Finding
High intensity radiated fields can cause premature activation of sensitive electro-explosive devices (EED's) contained in ordnance and weapons systems, ignite flammable fuel-air mixtures, cause possible biological injury to personnel and. trigger or damage solid state electronic circuitry.
In their words
“High intensity radiated fields can cause premature activation of sensitive electro-explosive devices (EED's) contained in ordnance and weapons systems, ignite flammable fuel-air mixtures, cause possible biological injury to personnel and. trigger or damage solid state electronic circuitry.”
Study Details
To introduce the problem of EMR hazards to weapons systems, ordnance and EED's and summarize the activities of the Department of Defense Electromagnetic Compatibility Standardization Program (EMCS) in the aforementioned hazards area.
The resolution of these hazard problems might logically be approached in any of several possible ways: (1) eliminate the EED from the ordnance or weapon system; (2) keep all ordnance containing EED's from being immersed in an electromagnetic field by physical separation; (3) silence the transmitting equipment while ordnance is present; or (4) design the system to preclude entry of undesired electromagnetic energy so that it remains safe and reliable in any electromagnetic environment that it may encounter. It is undesirable and usually impossible to implement (1) through (3). The only truly satisfactory solution is to consider these problems from the initial design of a weapon system so that the resultant system is not only compatible with other systems, subsystems and equipments in its intended installation, but can also survive as the high intensity electromagnetic fields it will encounter during its stockpile-to-target sequence.
Show BibTeX
@article{overview_of_department_of_defense_electromagnetic_radiation_hazards_standardizat_g5687,
author = {CAINE and S.},
title = {OVERVIEW OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION HAZARDS STANDARDIZATION PROGRAM},
year = {1973},
}