"Mainstream" links from US and Canada mention concerns about interference with heart pacemakers, especially in earlier days of microwave oven technology. These include the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, Health Canada, and the Child Welfare League of America. Government sites do of course talk about burns from flash boiling of superheated water or from contact with very hot food after microwave heating. You can check these official government sites (as well as unofficial alternative health sites), with web searches such as: "microwave oven safety" radiation hazards site:edu (13 hits in google.com), "microwave oven safety" radiation hazards (7 hits in scholar.google.com), and "microwave ovens" safety radiation site:ac.uk. There are alternative health pages with more alarming statements, for example June Russell's Health Facts and www.all-natural.com. There are many sites that advise you on evaluating these many conflicting web sites. Most colleges and universities have pages, such as our ”Evaluating Web Sites” here at the University of Maryland. But it never hurts to double check even “official” or “scholarly” sites. You can sometimes find incomplete references and even some less than “100 percent accurate” statements even in sites that have had very careful editing. Also, you would need to pin down the exact nature of low-level radiation or electromagnetic interference in the case of pacemakers. For example, we know from personal experience that a microwave oven can cause "snow" and audible interference on a TV in the next room, during each of its intermittent power cycles, but so can an electric drill or a vacuum cleaner – because of the static interference from the sparks generated by the electric motor brushes.

If you want to do advanced research on microwave oven safety, there are a number of databases on site in academic libraries and some in public libraries. INSPEC gets 57 hits for the search: microwave ovens and safety, and some appear to indicate there are at least some questions about low level radiation safety, particularly related to pacemakers. INSPEC would be available at most large academic libraries, and even a few very large public libraries. The same search: microwave ovens and safety gets 38 hits in Academic Search, which is available at many more academic libraries, and 43 hits in Masterfile Premier, which is at many public libraries. These would even be available via remote access, if you have a school ID or a library card number. Medline via Ebsco gets 22 hits for microwave ovens and safety. If you have no ready access to a library, Pubmed will get these same 22 hits, but only will give a short abstract. Usa.gov gets 14 sites with the search: "microwave oven safety” and this would be a good way to get quick full text information from official government sources, including some states as well as the federal government. (155 hits in google.com)

There are many other databases available in large academic libraries: "microwave oven*" and safety gets 9 hits in Science Direct (Elsevier journals online), 41 hits in Web of Science, and 26 records in Compendex for 1884-2007, for example. A thorough search would probably include books on household appliances, microwaves, Electric apparatus and appliances, and many other related subjects.

Thanks,

Jim Miller
jmiller2@umd.edu