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For decades, people have been sounding alarm bells on alleged health risks associated with a common kitchen appliance — the microwave. As of 2022, TikTok videos supposedly exposing the truth on microwaves and how they supposedly emit dangerous levels of radiation had racked up tens of thousands of views. In the clip below, for instance, someone used a handheld radiation detector to purportedly make the point. It's true that microwaves use electromagnetic radiation to heat food fast. However, in the U.S., federal health and safety regulators say the amount of radiation that leaks from a microwave throughout its lifetime is minuscule (or far below the level known to harm people), and they do not let manufacturers put microwaves on the market for people to buy unless they do not pose a hazard to public health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says on its website: Before TikTok warnings about microwaves' purported health risks, people circulated emails urging similar caution. Since 2002, for example, the below-transcribed message spread widely about a morning news segment on a Hawaiian local TV station, KHON-TV — sometimes with a disclaimer claiming Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in their newsletters. (In November 2004, this message was combined with another piece about the purported dangers of lead-containing lipstick, and, in 2007, it was combined with a spurious cancer update falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins Hospital.) One- or two-minute health spots on local news programs are not ideal sources of medical information. While important basic information can be imparted in such a format, trying to explicate complex medical topics in a minute or two can easily mislead or confuse viewers, many of whom come away believing absolutely whatever they’ve heard (or think they’ve heard) because a doctor on TV said it was true. That a doctor (or, more accurately, someone bearing the title Dr.) appears on TV does not mean they are a leading practitioner in the field; it generally means only that they had something to say that a news director considered newsworthy, accurate or not. (The Dr. Edward Fujimoto identified in this piece was not a staff physician from Castle Hospital or even a medical doctor. He was a Ph.D., serving as director of the Center for Health Promotion at Castle Medical Center in Kailua, Hawaii.) What TV news covers is often dictated by ratings, not importance, and sensational claims can generate better ratings than straightforward, mundane information — even if the latter is more valuable to the viewing audience. It’s a pretty good assumption that if using plastic containers in microwaves — as millions of people have been doing for decades — posed a significant risk of cancer, you’d be hearing about it somewhere other than an e-mail forward of an anonymous summary of a morning news spot on a Hawaiian television station. Is there really something to the central claim of the email, that heating plastic in microwaves releases a cancer-causing agent into the food? Yes, it is certainly possible that substances used in the manufacturing process of plastics can leak into food during the heating process, which is why the prudent always make sure to use only microwave safe plastic wrap and plastic containers when heat is going to be involved. The FDA imposes stringent regulations on plastic containers meant for microwaving as a preventive measure. Some plastic containers should not be used in a microwave oven because they can be melted by the heat of the food inside, the FDA stated, as of August 2022. The instructions that come with each microwave oven indicate the kinds of containers to use. They also cover how to test containers to see whether or not they can be used in microwave ovens. Dr. Rolf Halden of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health advised: Dioxins are dangerous compounds sensible people want to have as little to do with as possible and, thus, are cautious about using anything associated with them. Thankfully, they don’t appear to be lurking in commonly used plastic wrap and containers. Nasty chemicals can be and sometimes are found in plastic items, and heat tends to allow them to break free. It therefore makes sense to eschew letting any plastic not clearly identified as microwave safe or microwaveable touch food you’re going to heat. If you cover a dish you intend to microwave with ordinary plastic wrap, do not let the covering touch the food, because some of the plasticizer in the wrap — which may contain toxic chemicals, as opposed to does contain toxic chemicals — could migrate to what you’re cooking, especially foods high in fat. Alternatively, use waxed paper or microwaveable plastic wrap for this purpose. Those who are very, very cautious about the potential for contamination might choose to adopt the central point of the email’s advice, which is to decant all items into glass or ceramic containers before microwaving. Months after the viral email surfaced, the claim took the form of another message — this one describing a seventh-grade student's science project: This gist of this story was true. A student named Claire Nelson did perform the experiment described for a school science fair project back in 1997 by working with an FDA-affiliated laboratory. (She came up with the idea for the project while she was in seventh grade, but, as noted, she didn’t actually conduct the experiment until three years later.) Like the Fujimoto piece, however, the claims here tend towards the alarmist. The results of the experiment described tended to indicate that diethylhexyl adipate (DEHA) and xenoestrogens could migrate from plastic wraps into microwaved food (specifically, olive oil — the food used in the experiment) but only with some brands of plastic wrap (primarily ones not sold as microwave-safe), and only when the plastic wrap was in direct contact with the food being heated. Moreover, no research has yet demonstrated that DEHA poses a significant cancer risk to humans at the levels noted here (even though they exceed FDA standards) or that xenoestrogens are a direct cause of breast cancer in women or reduced sperm counts in men.
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