Subject: Re Who is responsible???? Part I........ (fwd)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 071347 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------
Hi everybody:
Here is an excellent response from Dr. Goldsmith in Israel.
This one ... I invite to the attention of my friends at NIEHS......
They are preparing the report that will have more impact on the EMF
future than any document yet produced ... in the U.S. ...
That is, unless they take refuge in a Congressional mandate that was
narrowly written into the legislation six years ago ... before the full
extent of the "ELF" problem was recognized ... to be a "non-ionizing"
problem ... rather than just an ELF problem......
Mother nature has not confined her non-ionizing/biological activity to
fit so neatly into the frequency "bands" defined by man...... She has
simply given us: a non-ionizing/biological activity "problem" to
figure out, locate the parameters, and learn to live with......
Cheerio....
guru
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:26:28 +0200 (IST)
From: John Goldsmith
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Cc: emfguru@hotmail.com, John Goldsmith
Subject: Re: Who is responsible???? Part I........ (fwd)
Peter:
You have clearly identified the problem. There is not any
publicly-supported agency capable of evaluating the accumulated data and
recommending and enforcing protective standards. I know whereof I speak,
since in past years I have been in charge of the research for the
California Health Department, which lead to air quality standards, which
are being enforced through emissions regulations. Also I participated
in a symposium in 1996 of the International Commission on Protection
against Non-Ionizing Radiation. The Symposium was supposed to be on non-thermal
effects, but ended up without any recommendation of using non-thermal
effects for revising the ancient,outmided standards. The Secretary of the
Symposium was Dr. Michael Repacholi who has a position with World Health
Organization responsible for radiation health studies. Repacholi consulted
for Bellsouth against a community group in New Zealand, and has research
grants from the Australian cellphone industry. (cf Miocrowave News,
May-June, 1997.)
There are to my knowledge at least three groups currently involved in
measuring exposures to the head and neck from cellphone use. One headed
by a Dr. Mild in Sweden who seems to have been hushed up, one in Finland,
headed by Dr. Hietanen, and one in Switzerland, reported in "Microwave
News" in December, and commented on in the last ten days in this column.
Short of political decisions, which may originate in only one
country, to require testing and reporting of exposures with different
types of equipment, we, the general public have only one tool...the
market. I am finishing a book hoping to provide the background for this.
Not buying cellular phones without information on the exposures produced
by the antennae can have an influence on the producers. Prior to that
day, there will, I regret to say, be a lot of cross currents and various
institutions, such as Consumer's Union, will have had their chances to
show if they still have the consumer's health at heart.
In two weeks I am scheduled to testify on the matter before the
Science Committee of the Knesset (the legislative body for Israel) on
the matter.
Just as I was starting to write, I had a visit from an Israeli
officer who has had intense exposure to military radar, and has apparently
recovered from Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. ( a form of lymph cell cancer, also
substantially elevated in the Polish Army study) Of the six men in his
Unit, four have had either lymphoma, melanoma, or radiation cataract. So
there is still a problem among military groups, and someday one of them
will admit it and try to take preventive measures.
For evaluating risks and taking preventive steps to reduce these
risks, especially prior to proof as to causation, there has evolved a new
set of principles of "prudent avoidance". Since various local
organizations can take avoidance measures on the basis of different
criteria, we are tending to encourage this approach and to pay less
attention to exposure standards. The exposure standard approach in
addition to its rigidity and the time it takes to get established and
provide reasonable protection, also has the implication that up to an
exposure near the standard, emissions or exposures are sanctioned.
This is obviously contrary to the ALARA principle.
So we must keep plugging away, focussing as much effort as we can
on places where the institutions and corporations are vulnerable,
places like market responses and "toxic" tort actions. Sooner or later a
governmental or professional agency will emerge and provide leadership, as
did the California Department of Health in the past.
John R. Goldsmith, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor of Epidemiology
gjohn@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Roy L. Beavers wrote:
>
> Hi everybody:
>
> Peter's plea (below) for some sense of sanity and ***responsibility***
> sounds perfectly justifiable to me.
>
> I am splitting his long message into two parts because sometimes
> I get "rejections" from some of your servers for "too long" messages.
> Part I is Peter's plea [with a few guru additions], part II is the report
> about another EMF health hazard ... something every "yuppie" must have....
>
> I especially recommend Peter's plea to the attention of the Heritage
> people....... (There is political "gold" in them 'thar' hills.....)
>
> Cheerio....
>
> Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
> rbeavers@llion.org..............http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html
> ................................It is better to light a single candle ...
> than to curse the darkness...............................................
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:19:44 EST
> From: PDepippo@aol.com
> To: rbeavers@mail.llion.org
> Subject: Fwd: QUALCOMM Unveils New 800 MHz Dual-Mode CDMA Digital...
>
> Roy,
>
> Now they make cell phones with an _internal_ antenna that doesn't need to
> be pulled up! I recall someone in the group saying that this makes the
> device even more harmful??
>
> After reading this (part II), I couldn't help asking myself, Who is truly
> responsible for making sure that this device ( and others ) are safe? You
> would think that it is the manufacturer, but they'll say they meet gov.
> standards. The gov will say that their agencies don't always have the
> expertise and rely "sometimes" on Industry to say what's OK. Or, that
> gov. scientists have not yet determined harm only because they never
> looked at it fully due to their ultimate liability and/or lack of evidence
> of the problem..... Or is it the medical community's
> ( with all its different sciences ) responsibility to alert us due to their
> ethical obligation they have with the public? Is it the insurance company's
> obligation due to risk of financial liability when the product is found to be
> harmful. Is it the publics responsibility to police itself because no one is
> forcing them to buy or use the product? [But, of course, the public must
> be given the information on which to base such judgments....guru]
>
> There has to be some group who is morally, ethically, legally and financially
> responsible to ensure safety. The bottom line is that if they don't do their
> job them they must be punished in one from or fashion.
>
> It seems to me that several groups deserve to be severely punished mainly for
> playing stupid, passing-the-buck and not doing their job.
> [Start with the government (Congress, Senate, President, VICE PRESIDENT,
> etc......guru)..... I put "caps" on the VP because of his hypocrisy as a
> "friend" of the environment, etc..... For the rest of the government,
> nobody even "pretends" to be a friend of the environment......guru]
>
> They include, the government, the manufacturers, the research agencies,
> the medical community, the press, the lawyers and scientists. Anyone that
> covers-up or half-heartedly goes about being responsible or not
> doing-the-right-thing needs to be exposed and punished.
> [The problem with the "punitive damages" law suit alternative is that (1)
> only the "rich" can afford our legal system, and (2) it literally takes
> DECADES, on average, to go through the court process -- look at tobacco or
> breast-implant cases. In the meantime, much public health damage is done
> -- usually that "cost" is absorbed by "the public," (read: taxpayer) or
> the individual victims.......guru]
>
> Who have we as a society, given the total responsibility to, to guarantee
> our safety as best as possible??? WHO?.....
> [Answer: FDA, EPA, NiH, NIEHS, etc...... A long list of acronym's -- RICH
> government bureaucracies -- that are not doing their job!!! .....guru]
>
> I believe that there are scientists that know the harm being caused and can
> prove it. They can prove that a device like a cell phone or VDT is harmful.
> But because of the lack of money can't get to do their job. It should be
> proposed that all corporations that are involved in a given technology be
> obligated to pay an additional tax of 1/100 of a percent of revenue to finance
> research, IF the corporations themselves don't PROVE the safety issue.
>
> I just can't understand how we are able to permit all of the lies and utter
> 'bullshit' [tut-tut.....guru] to continue. I just can't understand why it
> takes so damn long to do the right thing. One day or another the problem
> will be exposed, just like the tobacco issue. They lied for at least 30
> years and are directly responsible to killing million of people, not to
> mention causing other serious illnesses.
>
> So I ask myself, What would be the one thing that could be done to help shift
> to the "do-the-right-thing" process ? Could it be that the MEDIA must be
> forced to report the facts! Is this possible? Are they liable if they don't?
> In fact, aren't all those that cover-up the facts liable?
> [Yes, the media COULD do a lot to help.... But "the media" are mostly a
> bunch of "weenies" anymore......guru]
>
> Roy, what needs to be done to begin to solve the problem ? I, just like I'm
> sure many others out there, are sick and tired about all the mental
> masturbation which is going on and at a snails pace. All the groups that are
> supposedly out there to defend the interests of society need to wake the fuck
> up and do their job. If they don't, then they need to be held liable and
> brought to justice! [See below.]
>
> Can you tell that I'm a bit pissed off? [Nooooo!!!???] Well, I am ! Not
> so much because I have not yet been able to convince corporations of the
> VDT problem and our technology, but because of all the lies by those
> agencies, corporations or institutions that hide behind one another and
> pass the responsibility off to the other. They are getting away with
> murder !
> [And those RICH government bureaucracies are being well paid
> while they are at it, too!!!.... guru]
>
> So again I ask, what one thing needs to be done to BEGIN solving the obvious
> EMR problem ?
> [Try the Heritage Society. They are in favor of a "political
> revolution"....guru]
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter de Pippo
>
>
>
>
>
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html