Subject:  Is EMF a health phobia?....NY Times....(Guru)
Date:     Sun, 8 Aug 1999 174044 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" 
To:       emfguru 
--------------------------------------------------

Hi everybody:

Th question "whether or not there are health hazards as a result of
exposure to power line EMF," must be a terribly important issue in the
eyes of the New York Times.

At least twice in less than two weeks that publication has circulated
stories which attack any such notion.  Their latest appears in this
weekend's Times Magazine.  In a story by Mark Kingwell, "A shock to the
System," (that lumps EMF with a group of other so-called health phobias),
Kingwell states:

     "A federal investigation declared that the most influential studies
     about the hazards of electromagnetic fields were completely false,
     and the scientist who published them had actually faked his data."

Now, let's take a good look at Kingwell's little propaganda 'blast'
(above) word-by-word, so to speak...

"A federal investigation"  -- Was the federal investigation he refers-to
something about EMF health effects?  Or was it a press release about a
"scientific malpractice" case against Dr. Robert Liburdy, who was accused
-- but not found "guilty" -- of providing false data in his research?

Clearly, Kingwell was referring to the latter.

In point of fact:  Liburdy was not found guilty of anything.  His research
was (partially) withdrawn, because of the graphs which he had submitted.
They were found "incomplete" by an impartial group of three scientists who
peer reviewed his work.  The same three scientists  concluded that the
overall thrust of Liburdy's conclusions were not changed by the
"incomplete" graphs.  (I would say "misleading," but that makes it all
sound too much like another recent case in the news.)

The facts in the preceding paragraph (which seem to have escaped writer
Kingwell entirely), however, still do not answer the really IMPORTANT
question:  What about the possible health hazards of EMF?

First, let's finish with the Liburdy affair.  The fact is that trivial
case has had absolutely 100% NOTHING to do with the U.S. Government's
position vis-a-vis the hazards of EMF.   Liburdy continued to conduct
his EMF research long after the accusations were made against him,
concentrating on the possible impact of EMF on the behavior of the
hormone, melatonin.  His research in that regard has been valuable and
illuminating.  Its veracity and conclusions are unchallenged.  In fact,
his most important work has been confirmed by two other laboratories,
one of them a government laboratory.  The Liburdy research project that
had been challenged, however, was eliminated from all consideration in the
government's follow-up on the EMF issue.

But, Kingwell tells us that, "A federal investigation declared that the
most influential studies about the hazards of of electromagmetic fields
were completely false."  Is that the government's position on the hazards
of EMF -- that the whole matter is a phony health phobia, entirely to be
dismissed, as Kingwell would like us to believe?

And, was the ONE 'challenged' Liburdy study so influential in
the consideration of this matter that all other evidence should be
ignored?  (If so, I know personally a couple hundred other scientists
-- in the U.S. and abroad -- who are entitled to be mightily offended
because their work and their contributions to the same 5-year $45 million
U.S. Government research effort would be so summarily dismissed as
not worthy of consideration alongside that of Liburdy.  It just ain't
so!!!)

In truth. the final results which -- for the moment -- represent the
official U.S. Government's position on this matter ... involve literally
**hundreds** of studies by scores of scientists worldwide.  (This writer
attended all but one of the 6 or 7 meetings at which the scientists of
the world presented their findings.)  No one study is ever left to stand
alone in a scientific matter of this importance.

So, what is the official U.S. Government position on power line EMF
hazards?

The OFFICIAL U.S. government position is contained in a report that was
released In June of this year by the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences (NIEHS).  It is called "The NIEHS Report on Health Effects
from Exposure to Power-Line Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields."

I quote here from the seminal paragraph of its "conclusion" section:

    "The NIEHS concludes that ELF-EMF exposure cannot be recognized as
     entirely safe because of weak scientific evidence that exposure may
     pose a leukemia hazard.  In our opinion, this finding is insufficient
     to warrant aggressive regulatory concern.  However, because virtually
     everyone in the United States uses electricity and therefore is
     routinely exposed to ELF-EMF, passive regulatory action **is
     warranted** such as continued emphasis on educating both the public
     and the regulated community on means aimed at reducing exposures."
     [...Italics supplied by this writer.....]

Now, that doesn't sound like what Mr. Kingwell is telling us in his New
York Times Magazine article, does it???

Friends, many years ago (during my naval intelligence training) I was
subjected to a course in the "art and practice of propaganda."  Needless
to say, many of the examples I studied then (1950s) were taken from the
annals of the German Nazi practitioners of that art.  I remember that the
(sort of) subtitle for the course was "The Big Lie."  Isn't it true?
That, indeed, appears to be what 'successful propaganda' is all about.
The bigger the lie ... the more likely it is to be successful.

I suggest -- that is what Mr. Kingwell (and the New York Times?) seem
determined to "teach us" today --  another lesson from the same propaganda
annals I studied about the Nazis during my training more than 40 years
ago.....

One would not ordinarily expect that from the New York Times!  It is,
therefore, the **desperation** they are displaying in their reporting on
this matter (the Kingwell story was not the first "misleading" report)
that causes me conclude this short essay (op-ed piece)... back where I
started:

The EMF hazard issue -- as truly revealed in the official U.S. Government
report -- must be a terribly important matter in the eyes of the New York
Times......  Else, why would they display such determination to distort
it???

Cheerio.....

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at: 
EMF-L archives can be found at: 
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................

........DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST?????.............


Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com