Subject: Comments re Larry King Live show (Lundquist)..
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 113353 -0500
From: Roy Beavers
To: guru
--------------------------------------------------
.........I like this info from Marj about the influence of the "techies" on health
matters.... Read it all the way down.... It gets better in second half...guru...
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Comments re Larry King Live show
Date: 11 Aug 00 07:38:56 PDT
From: marjlundquist@address.com
To: guru@emfguru.com
Roy, I'd like to make a few comments on the discussion of cellular phone
health hazards and the Larry King Live program that aired earlier this week.
I didn't see the program, but I did locate the written transcript (with some
difficulty) on the CNN Website, just as Joanne Mueller said.
The program was a good one. Larry King is to be commended, I think, for
putting it together and airing it.
Second, the use of the honorific "Dr." can be confusing when some people are
medical doctors and others are Ph.D.s. Joanne wrote: "I would ask Dr. Moulder
whether he recalls taking the Hippocratic oath!!!!" I am sure Dr. Moulder has
no such recollection, because he is a Ph.D., not an M.D., and only M.D.s ever
take the Hippocratic oath.
Sam Milham is a medical doctor, I believe.
Dr. Ian Smith, who serves as a medical consultant for Time magazine, is
probably a medical doctor, though I have not verified this.
The last "expert" interviewed on the Larry King show was Dr. David Feigal (the
spelling may be incorrect) and he was described as the director of the FDA's
Center for Devices and Radiological Health. I tried to verify this by phoning
the FDA this morning. I got a centralized service for the whole FDA and asked
who was the Director of the CDRH. I was told "Bruce Burlington". I have an
old U.S. Government Manual that gives the name "D. Bruce Burlington" as the
Director of the FDA's CDRH, but I had thought that maybe a new person held
that position now, which is why I phoned. Having worked for the federal
government myself, I consider it perfectly possible that Bruce Burlington may
no longer be the Director of the CDRH, and the centralized service I was
connected with may not have up-to-date information. I'll check on this
further and let you in a separate message later today. [I tried checking the
FDA's Web page but they seem not to post information on FDA personnel.]
While I don't yet know whether Dr. David Feigal is an M.D. or a Ph.D., it is
most likely that he is a Ph.D. I'll check this out and let you know later
today what I learn.
Now, some substantive comment. Electrical engineers have been considered to
be the "experts" on the health effects of exposure to non-ionizing
electromagnetic radiation and fields for at least 35 years. This is a
historical accident; if one looks at the training electrical engineers
receive, it is clear that there is no factual basis for this.
Historically, the concern about health effects arose from the use on ships and
airplanes of radar systems. Radar systems are designed by, their manufacture
is supervised by, and their installation is carried out by, or is supervised
by, electrical engineers. Therefore electrical engineers were brought in when
health concerns first arose in the early 1950s. This was reasonable.
Most medical and health personel have never cared to learn much detail about
the electromagnetic field. Consequently they have left this to the electrical
engineers, who are taught something about the electromagnetic field in their
undergraduate courses.
Even those medical and health personnel who have been willing to learn about
the electromagnetic field have needed someone to teach them, and electrical
engineers have been willing to undertake this task. So the only view of the
electromagnetic field that health professionals have learned is what
electrical engineers have taught.
The only other profession that enjoys knowledge of the electromagnetic field
is physics. For some reason physicists have never been asked or encouraged to
address this issue, though some have voluntarily done so on their own
initiative. [I am one; Robert K. Adair (former Chairman of the Physics
Department at Yale University) is another.]
The result is that the electrical engineering profession has controlled the
view that has been taken of radio-frequency/microwave health hazards for most
of the last half-century. In particular, electrical engineers have defined
exposure metrics and set exposure standards for health protection.
The electromagnetic field is the only agent I know of where health protection
metrics and standards have been developed by people who do NOT belong to a
health or disease prevention profession! The electrical engineers have had no
oversight in doing this, because there has been no one with better knowledge
of the electromagnetic field than they possess who has attempted to provide
this oversight -- until I undertook this task in recent years.
There are flaws in what the electrical engineers have done. I concluded that
a new profession is needed to provide a sound scientific basis for the
exposure metrics and health protection standards that are needed to provide
genuine protection against the health hazards posed by RF/MW fields and
radiation. I call this profession "bioelectromagnetic hygiene" and the
initial paper introducing it to the scientific world, providing the
fundamental scientific equations for exposure metrics and explaining what they
mean, is to be published this fall, probably in November.
I will provide a more detailed announcement in October, so that people will
know how to access this paper. I mention it now simply to make everyone aware
that this paper will make its appearance before the end of this year, and it
will upset everything that is supposedly "known" at this time about the safety
of RF/MW radiation.
The electrical engineering profession has been knowledgeable about only one
mechanism of biological damage: thermal effects. My paper explains the basis
for nonthermal effects.
Regulators and medical personnel have all been constrained to accept the view
of electrical engineers, simply because there has been none other. That will
change in just a few months. Once my paper comes out, all that activists need
to do is demand a "bioelectromagnetic hygiene" evaluation of potential health
hazards; that "bioelectromagnetic hygiene research" be carried out for the
purpose of evaluating and RF/MW health hazards; and that legislation and
regulations reflect that electrical engineering evaluations are unsatisfactory
unless carried out under the supervision of a bioelectromagnetic hygienist,
who should sign off on any final report.
The needed change has been a long time coming, but it is on its way and will
be here very soon. -- Marjorie
*********************************
Marjorie Lundquist, Ph.D., C.I.H.
Bioelectomagnetic Hygienist
P. O. Box 11831
Milwaukee, WI 53211-0831 USA
*********************************
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com