This view led to the policy of denying any nonthermal effects from any electromagnetic usage, whether military or civilian. To accomplish this policy objective, several specific actions were taken as follows.
Control over the scientific establishment was maintained by allocating research funds in such a way as to ensure that only "approved" projects -- that is, projects that would not challenge the thermal-effects standard -- would be undertaken. Further, the natural reactionary tendency of science was capitalized upon by enlisting the support of prominent members of the engineering and biological professions. In some instances, scientists were told that nonthermal effects did occur, but that national security objectives required that they be exceptionally well established before they became public knowledge. Many scientists' goals were subverted by unlimited grant funding from the military and by easy access to the scientific literature.
The formal scientific establishments of the United States were mobilized. When serious challenges to the thermal-effects standard were raised publicly, eminent scientific boards, associations, or foundations were provided with lucrative "contracts" to evaluate the state of knowledge of bioeffects of electromagnetic fields. These investigations resulted in the production of voluminous "reports."
All of these reports shared certain characteristics. Scientific data indicating nonthermal bioeffects were either ignored or subjected to extensive and destructive review. Those examined were required to have much higher standards of possible validity than reports indicating no such bioeffects. Scientists who reported the existence of nonthermal bioeffects were ridiculed and were portrayed as being out of the mainstream. Actual disinformation was utilized to create a false impression: for example, while a statement such as, "There is no evidence for any effects of pulsed magnetic fields on humans" would have been literally true, it would have ignored the many reports of such effects on laboratory animals and the fact that no actual tests had been conducted on humans. It was common practice to include an "executive summary" with the massive report. These summaries never reflected the data that were actually hidden in the full report.
A group of manufactured experts was produced to serve as spokesmen and expert witnesses. These were people with few qualifications for research in this (or any) scientific field, who were provided with large research grants and placed on many committees, boards, and international governmental commissions dealing with the bioeffects of electromagnetic energy. Superficially, they appeared to be prominent researchers, until one discovered that the actual number of scientific papers they had produced was minimal. These "experts" were, and still are, used to testify in legal proceedings dealing with civilian installations such as power lines and microwave relay systems.
Scientists who persisted in publicly raising the issue of harmful effects from any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum were discredited, and their research grants were taken away.