For many decades it was effectively forbidden to publish anything about effects of electric fields and currents on living systems, on pain of losing access to grants and lab space. Becker had a unique arrangement with the US Veterans' Administration to study limb regeneration, and was able to sidestep the restrictions. It was sort of permitted in veterinary medicine, too, so that e.g. racehorses could get bone fracture healing acceleration.
In 1987 I attended a talk by an American researcher presenting in Szeged, Hungary, results growing beetle larvae 4x larger than normal through electromagnetic stimulation. She couldn't present at American conferences.
I never figured out, exactly, who enforced the restriction, or how, but got the impression it was connected in some way with protecting power distribution system and/or broadcast operators from liability.
So for all this time, the only effect that was allowed to be acknowledged was heating, microwave-oven style.
I always assumed that people were afraid to touch the topic lest they be associated with the "cellphones are dangerous!!!" crowd.
Or (more likely but more boring) people tried it and got a lot of negative "unpublishable" results.
But what if it's a decades-long Cold War conspiracy? That'd make for a fun miniseries.
Over the decades we have heard of a variety of dental discoveries never followed up -- vaccine against tooth decay, stimulated regeneration of whole teeth. It all may need to wait for a generation not gated by the ADA.
