Subject: (high) RE How important is the "mechanism?".... (fwd)
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 092444 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 13:56:00 +0200
From: "HIGH, INGRID"
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: RE: How important is the "mechanism?"....
Dear Marjorie,
I have felt uneasy about this discussion, and reading what you have
written I feel I am getting more close to why.
It is important for research on the mechanisms, (the plural is important
here), but as found in many other fields, scientific results like that
cannot be used to persuade the opposition that there is a need to do
anything. The standard answer you get is "So what, what does this have
to do with people getting ill?" When one digs into details of
functioning it becomes too easy for the opponents to ask the next
question, and the next, and the next. You get dug down into deeper and
deeper trenches, and the overall picture is being lost. As you all have
seen this is even used to manufacture evidence against the thing
investigated - for instance choose an obscure cancer and you are up
against figures which are difficult to state anything with.
The one trouble with this sort of research into the detailed action is
that human bodies aren't a machine with a simple relationship between
cause and action. Some people get ill, but others don't also with the
same exciting cause around (be it a virus, a toxin, bacteria, emr). So
you can prove that there are physiological results of EMR, but how do
you prove that people get ill from these? I know that amalgam is bad,
that the leakage of the mercury makes many people severely ill - but as
a (part-time) homeopath I have to admit that it is quite easy to make
these people healthy (for a period), without doing anything about
removing their amalgams. I can do the same with emf-ill people.
I have seen this wish to prove how the action really is, in the
amalgam-question, and I have seen this about homeopathy. In the latter
there have been public debates where solid scientific people who don't
believe that homeopathy is possible, have been asked the question - and
what if we really design a piece of research that shows that it works? -
the answer was: "I still won't believe it, and will ask you to do more
work to prove it". I fear that scientists will research that what they
get money to do research about, and what is politically correct to
research.
Epidemiological information is what will be understood by politicians.
The one major event which really got people to listen in the
amalgam-question was when all people coming into some great
health-exhibition in Germany were asked to give a saliva-sample which
was then investigated as regards to mercury-content, and they answered a
very simple questionaire about state of health. With 17,000 samples
there were figures which it was impossible to talk against, they were
understood by everybody.
Truth and facts are seldom a useful argument when it comes to fighting
against money-interest. You need to find some method to fight within a
field of understanding that both sides share.
The swedish-norwegian investigation on mobile-phones was a step in the
right direction. Large numbers showing headache and other general
unwellness. A definite action, a definite cause and result. And numbers
big enough to get employers, social security etc, to hopefully sit up
and both listen and think.
Please don't misunderstand me to say that we don't need research -
research is vital; but it isn't that basic research which is most likely
to persuade politicians to change course. That is needed for the people
fighting within the question to get a better foundation for their work -
later it will be accepted by everybody.
with warm greetings,
Ingrid HIgh
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From: Roy L. Beavers
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
Subject: How important is the "mechanism?"....
Date: 03. July 1998 12:35
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 12:42:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: marjorie lundquist
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Re: The "way" of politicians
Although Bill Curry and I are both physicists, I don't share his
strong desire to know the mechanism by which electromagnetic fields
cause harm to living tissue. I don't agree that epidemiological
studies don't mean much in the absence of a mechanism of injury.
Bill is correct that one cannot conclude, on the basis of
epidemiological data alone, that a given agent is hazardous to health.
All that epidemiological studies can document is association.
In some cases, if the association is specific enough, the causal agent
can be pretty clear. I am thinking of a map prepared of cases of
illness in Guilford, CT, which showed that the cases were all located
along a particular electric power line, within a certain distance of
it. In this particular instance, the way the diseases were
geographically associated with that power line made it pretty apparent
that the power line was implicated.
But more often there are a variety of possible agents that might be
responsible for a given observed pattern of disease, and the
epidemiological study usually will not distinguish among them.
This is when one looks to supporting evidence that may enable one
agent to be selected as more credible than another, in terms of
causing the disease. Then the question of mechanism is often raised,
and if there is no known mechanism by which one of the suspect agents
could cause the disease in question, there will be some
people--including some scientists--who will rule out a candidate agent
on that basis!
The question of mechanism does call for an answer, but it is not
absolutely essential. With microwave EMF, for example, we have one
(and I think two, although the second is somewhat controversial at
present) controlled laboratory studies that indicate an association
between lifetime rodent EMF exposure and disease (specifically, cancer).
The value of the controlled laboratory study is that it can answer the
question: Is the disease clearly associated with the particular agent
under study here? With one of the rodent studies (the Guy rat study)
the answer is YES, the cancer rate is about 3 1/2 times higher in the
rats that received the microwave exposure and if the data reported in
Microwave News (March/April 1997) is correct, then the answer in the
Toler mouse study is again YES, there is a higher cancer rate in the
microwave-exposed mice than in the control group.
An epidemiological study CANNOT pinpoint one specific agent as causing
the pattern of disease; a controlled laboratory study CAN.
Once we know, from controlled laboratory studies, that cancer really
is associated with EMF exposure, and not some other environmental
agent, then we can go back to the epidemiological studies with new
assurance that we can tie the disease to a specific agent (via
controlled lab studies). Now we can draw additional conclusions from
the epidemiological studies -- and nowhere in here do we have to know
a mechanism!
Having pointed out that knowledge of a mechanism is not logically
necessary in order to give epidemiological studies credibility, I must
now point out that Bill Curry's viewpoint is held by a good many
professionals, especially physical scientists. They simply are not
going to believe that a hazard exists unless someone can give them a
credible mechanism!
In the final analysis, credibility is personal. I may be convinced by
one set of data, but my neighbor or a colleague may require completely
different evidence in order to be convinced. When the situation is
not clear and professionals disagree, then the only way to convince a
large number of people (which is usually necessary as a prerequisite
to political action) is to have reasonably convincing evidence on
EVERY front!
So Bill Curry's emphasis on mechanism is appropriate, even though I
personally don't perceive it as necessary and don't need it to
convince ME! Attention to the mechanism by which EMF exposure
produces disease is important and proper, even though it isn't
logically necessary, and even though (in my judgment) we have enough
evidence RIGHT NOW to convince any sensible person that exposure to
microwave EMF is hazardous!
--Marjorie
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html