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2003-10-1714: 43: 22 Source: Henan Daily-Henan Pictorial Bad Information Report, Comments, View Comments.
The rumor of the resurgence of harmful theory comes from an article published by an American scholar not long ago, which is said to be Raymond, a senior scholar at the University of Massachusetts. Written by Francis, after listing a series of examples and experimental studies from Switzerland, the United States and the former Soviet Union, he reached the following surprising conclusions: First, microwave food will produce new toxic and even carcinogenic compounds; Second, the nutritional value of food is seriously lost; Third, when you eat microwave food, your body will focus on some changes. These foods can easily lead to cancer, hormone imbalance, lymphatic and digestive system disorders, abnormal blood and immunity, depression, permanent brain damage, and even heart disease. Therefore, the article suggests: "Unplug the microwave oven and never use it again."
After articles about the harm of microwave processing food to human health appeared in the internet and newspapers one after another, rumors about the harm of microwave processing food began to rise for a time.
After this article was reprinted by some domestic media, many consumers had great fear. Galanz alone receives inquiries from thousands of consumers all over the country every day. The market sales of microwave ovens began to decline sharply, and the confidence of some businesses was hit hard. The production and sales of Galanz Company were affected, which caused a serious crisis to a microwave oven enterprise which occupied two-thirds of the global production capacity.
Lack of evidence support
For a large number of civilian products and their industries such as microwave ovens, the conclusion of Francis's article is undoubtedly devastating. Does the microwave oven that people are familiar with and used to processing food have any influence on the human body? What's the impact? How great will the impact be? These really need further clarification.
Officials from the Food Safety Coordination Department of the US Food and Drug Administration said in an interview that they had not received any reports that microwave food was harmful to human health. In response to a reporter's question that "the Soviet Union banned the use of microwave ovens in 1976 and issued a global warning", the official said that he had never heard of it. If so, the World Health Organization will certainly issue a warning, but so far, WHO has not issued a warning.
"This is a denial of the 70-year history of the entire microwave oven industry. The harmful theory of microwave ovens out of nothing almost ruined an industry. " Chen Gang, Deputy Secretary-General of China Household Electrical Appliances Association, told reporters that in April 2002, an article about the hazards of microwave ovens made the sales of microwave oven industry in China drop by more than 40% in May and June of that year.
With regard to the theory that microwave ovens are harmful again, Deputy Secretary-General Chen Gang believes that we must draw a conclusion carefully and have sufficient scientific basis for major events that affect people's health all over the world. Obviously, there is no strong evidence that microwave food is harmful to human body.
Microwave ovens produce less radiation than mobile phones. Wang Shihe, director of the Consumer Guidance Department of China Consumers Association, said in an interview that the detection method of microwave ovens in China is consistent with that adopted internationally, and the standard of "no more than 1 MW per square centimeter" of microwave ovens in China is even stricter than the international standard of "no more than 5 MW per square centimeter". "In developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan, everyone uses microwave ovens, but I have never heard of the phenomenon that lack of nutrition is harmful to the body."
Industry experts say radiation
The research and development fields of Tsinghua University Microwave and Digital Communication Laboratory and Harbin Institute of Technology Microwave Laboratory mainly focus on the application of microwave in remote sensing and communication, but there is no special research on the subtle fields of microwave in daily diet heating and cooking. But experts agree that the general conclusion must be based on data and theory, and more importantly, experiments.
Cao, a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an expert in radiation biology, believes that two points should be clearly distinguished first, namely, the influence of microwave radiation and the influence of microwave oven processing food on people. The harm of microwave radiation to human body is proved by a lot of evidence, which is certain; However, as long as proper protective measures are taken, microwaves can be widely used in communication, remote sensing and other fields to benefit mankind. However, whether the food processed by microwave oven is harmful to human body is still lack of convincing evidence, so we can't jump to conclusions. Secondly, it depends on whether the object of microwave treatment is alive or static. Wen Fu's first example is not accurate, because he compares the active blood used for blood transfusion with ordinary food in a still body, which obviously can't explain the problem.
Cao stressed that only through rigorous scientific experiments, especially at the molecular level, can we determine whether the food processed by microwave ovens is harmful. For example, to judge whether the nutrition of food is lost after processing, it is necessary to detect in detail whether the content of protein and vitamins has decreased and how much; To judge whether it is carcinogenic, it is necessary to quantitatively analyze whether the representative carcinogens have increased and how much, and whether this increase or decrease is within the scope allowed by the standard. Moreover, the above experiments must be strictly compared with a large number of people before a statistical scientific conclusion can be drawn. However, it is obvious that the experiment of Wen Fu is not sufficient and lacks strict pathological investigation, so although there is nothing wrong in principle, the conclusion is rash. For example, he said that serum causes bacteria to glow, so it is better to use the serum of volunteers to detour and directly use processed food; Besides, how many volunteers did it use? Did it only eat microwave food or did it eat other food? Are the results all the same? Wait, there are no statistical results. Cao pointed out that it is obviously too early to say that "microwave food is harmful to human body" before strict scientific experiments. Remind that it is ok for many people to pay attention to the use of microwave ovens, but it will bring unnecessary confusion to draw a general conclusion that microwave ovens cannot be used.
Professor He from China Preventive Medicine Association introduced that microwave is a kind of high-frequency wave, which changes at a speed of 2.4 billion times per second, so that water molecules move at high speed and rub against each other to generate heat, so that heating and cooking food will not destroy food nutrition. The data of food hygiene supervision department also showed that the loss rate of vitamin C in Chinese cabbage cooked by microwave oven was 4.76%, while that of traditional cooking method was 19.04%. "It is nonsense that microwave cooking destroys food nutrition."
"The radiation generated by microwave ovens is even smaller than that of ordinary fluorescent lamps. At present, the international standard for microwave leakage of microwave ovens is no more than 5 milliwatts per square centimeter, which will not cause any harm to people's health. " Zhang Tieyan, vice president of China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute and deputy director of the laboratory of the National Household Electrical Appliances Quality Supervision, Inspection and Testing Center, made it clear.
Zhang Tieyan also revealed that for any household appliances, the state has corresponding laws and regulations to ensure that the products meet the standards, and international standards will leave a margin for human safety indicators. However, the detection index of microwave ovens in China is better than the international index, so from the test results, domestic microwave ovens are completely safe, and the "harmful theory of microwave ovens" has no scientific reason. (Consumer Daily Gu Kefei)