Subject:  Is 'Mechanism' essential to public policy???......
Date:     Thu, 16 Jul 1998 160617 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------

Hi everybody:

My apologies for missing the following message, sent two weeks ago 
by an old friend (from the "original" EMF-L days), Dr. Mike Milburn and
his wife Dr. Maren Oelbermann....  (Mike: note my current address.)

He sends more discussion on the "importance" of 'mechanism.'

Just to reiterate guru's position on this.  I do not doubt or challenge 
the validity or importance of 'mechanism' to science....  I see absolutely
no reason, however, to hold up public policy action while science devotes
the next 30 years (if tobacco is any guide) to the pursuit of that 
process.....

Sorry, again, Mike, 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...............................................

     _________________________________________________________________

Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1998 15:22:10 -0400
From: maren oelbermann   
Subject: Mechanism: Science or Red Herring
Cc: "(unknown)" 

   -

Roy and Crew:

The search for a mechanism is a crucial part of the scientific process.  I
devoted a chapter to this question in my book Electromagnetic Fields and
Your Health (see ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mpm_mo).  Without a
mechanism epidemiological studies will never be measuring the correct
feature of those complex beasts -- electromagnetic fields.  And when they
do it is likely that risk levels will be increased, a possibility  that
epidemiologists like Gilles Theriault have noted.

It is my feeling that living things are as much complex bioelectromagnetic
systems as they are chemical machines and it will take an understanding of
endogenous communications and control mechanisms to really solve the
problem of EMF bioeffects.  The late, great Herbert Froehlick was a pioneer
in this area.  Unfortunately, one rarely hears of him and there is
certainly little funding for anyone wanting to do this kind of work!  There
is at least the outline of a foundation in place, but itstead of building
on it, it seems we go in circles -- constantly reinventing the wheel.

Of course the mechanism issue is picked up by vested interests and their
lackeys as an excuse to ignore the problem.  In medicine, for example, the
lack of a mechanism to "explain" homeopathy, acupuncture, etc. is used as
an excuse for ignoring their value and even persecuting practitioners.  The
irony is that well over half of conventional medical therapies are still
poorly understood -- even aspirin apparently -- and over half are poorly
tested.  But that never stopped them from becoming the basis of medical
practice.

Mechanism becomes a unjustified justification for orthodoxy and established
interests.

Regards,

Mike Milburn





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