Subject: Re This world is 3D (fwd)
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 035128 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 1998 04:11:41
From: Alasdair Philips
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: Re: This world is 3D (fwd)
Hi folks, its Alasdair yet again:
This has turned out to be rather long but I have tried to keep it (fairly)
non technical in detail.
I like Robert Pritchett's comments and they set me thinking. The world is
multi-dimensional (spacially & temporally) and biological
inter-relationships (especially Life ones) are very complex. This is why
the results from the EMF epidemiological studies only show a (say) doubling
in child cancer rates. We are pooling large amounts of data and while we
are told that "firms up the statistics" it also means we can miss the real
issues.
A good example is the clustering of childhood cancer around a UK nuclear
power reactor site at Sellafield (formally Windscale). If you map that with
rainfall (the site is on a low coastal plain with high hills shortly
inland) you can see an absolutely clear and damning picture. The site
creates childhood cancers. If you plot the cancers by postal zip code (the
way the UK authorities work to "avoid selection bias") the clustering all
but disappears, if you plot it by administrative County then it goes
altogether! Great, everyone can relax and stop worrying. Bigger numbers
do NOT always mean better insight.
Last year there was a scandal about ex UK Chatham naval dockyard workers
dying of cancers when they apparently weren't exposed to ionsining
radiation. Some were due to a loophole which meant their exposure badge
readings were never recorded (!) but some had been well recorded. One
highly exposed man had apparently had a lifetime dose of 106 milliseiverts
which is about the maximum allowed. After his death his widow had his body
put through a whole body scanner which showed that he was still internally
radiating at a level which would have "self-exposed" him to about 3
Seiverts!!! A wartime dose of about 4 Seiverts is expected to kill half
the population. So what was wrong? It turns out that none of the badges
measure alpha radiation which is "internationally agreed" to be 20 times
more deadly than gamma or beta when INSIDE the human body, and this guy had
been exposed to radioactive dust which he had inhaled and ingested.
Further investigations showed that internal exposure was highly significant
for the other workers, too. Internal exposure has almost always been ignored.
Recent work by Dr Alice Stewart has shown that the Hiroshima & Nagasaki
bomb survivor data (which has been universally used to set exposure
standards) is MOST misleading. She uses new data extracted from the US
Government for people who have previously been excluded as dying too soon
after the bombs to show that high numbers of "radiation sensitive" people
died from multiple problems shortly after the explosions (within 6 months
or a year) and these have always been excluded from the statistics. So the
"Standards" were based on a "radiation hardened" population (You radiation
harden electronic integrated circuits intended for military use by exposing
them to very high levels of radiation and throwing away the ones which
fail. The rest have a MUCH lower failure rate) and so were set FAR too
high to protect the whole population.
Indeed I am now convinced that the rise in cancers we are seeing are mainly
initially CAUSED by:
(i) nuclear radiation from bomb fallout, leaks, & etc. We cannot now find
an unexposed population anywhere on Earth! This is probably the prime
source of many cancers now. You can see clear trends in UK childhood
cancers following Chernobyl accident fallout, and following the original
atmospheric bombs tests in the 1950s and 60s.
A colleague who has been looking in detail at DNA from children in Eastern
Europe says that their "redundant DNA", ie the bulk (>c.95%) of their DNA
which medical science has yet to find a purpose for, has been "scrambled as
if beaten with an egg whisk" since Chernobyl. He says that we have "no idea
what the long-term consequences of this are". What it does cause is
"genomic instability" - i.e. the likelihood that things will go seriously
wrong in the future when some other "insult" comes along to stress their
systems. This instability can be seen to pass from generation to
generation in mice and rats. It does NOT get corrected.
New work by Henshaw et al at Bristol University confirms a build up of
carcinogenic and radiactive aerosols around high voltage power lines - it
is an electric field effect - this could explain why the 1996 US NAS report
found a significant link between childhood leukaemia with proximity to high
voltage power lines but not with measured EMFs. (see recent Florida BEMS
meeting abstracts)
(ii)agrochemicals and food additives. Toxicology - the science that
decides whether chemicals are safe - works by applying high doses of SINGLE
substances for relatively short time periods. NO ACCOUNT is taken of
subtle interactions of the mixing of the 1000s of "man-made" chemicals that
we ingest with our food each day, every day of our lives. Most of these
chemicals are made by the vary same multi- national companies who make the
"cancer treatment" drugs. They are not interested in finding out the true
causes and stopping cancers at source - they fund (and otherwise lobby and
support) work to find "treatment" drugs to spin out the lives of the
victims. They cream their profits at both ends of the chain.
A good example of the stupidity of Governmental thinking: In Europe we
encourage "lead free" petrol/gasoline and this fuel is given tax
advantages. This was due to the link of lead (anti-knock agent) with minor
brain damage particularly in children. Good "green" idea. However the
petroleum companies screamed about costs etc. and they were allowed to use
a waste product, that they had real problems in disposing of (Benzene), as
the new anti-knock additive. Now benzene is added to most of the petrol
used in cars in over here .....
.... and benzene is one of the very few KNOWN causes of childhood leukaemia
!!!!!!! How the #$*! could this be allowed ???
You CAN get low benzene fuel - very few gas station stock it as it is
dearer as the petroleum has to be more highly refined to reach the
equivalent octane rating. What governments SHOULD have done was to insist
that all petrol was low benzene but the strong petroleum lobby won its way
and found a new legal way of selling its previous hazardous waste chemical.
This is about to happen with the Euratom treaty which will allow low grade
radioactive waste to be "diluted" and be used in building materials and
consumer products, and medium level waste to be "diluted" and be put in
non-nuclear-classified land-fill sites with ordinary domestic rubbish. It
is a wonderful way of easing the nuclear industry's waste problem.
If we can't achieve sensible thinking on issues like this (where the hazard
is KNOWN), what chance have we controlling EMF's sensibly?
I have spent some years now looking at the childhood leukaemia and ELF
(mains power frequency) EMF issue and I attach a summary of my thoughts
about the causes of childhood leukaemia at the end of this message (because
it is rather 'heavy' to read). I do not believe that ELF EMFs actually
damage DNA but they do play a role in how individual bodies deal with the
effects of the damaged DNA. Some people are (for inherited genetic or
earlier health history reasons) less able to deal with cancerous cells
(which we all regularly get!) and it is only this sub-set of people whose
immune system response is already poor that will be "pushed over the
threshold" by ELF EMFs. We also know about the ELF EMF / ODC (ornithine
decarboxylase) and EMF / melatonin links which can affect carcinogenisis.
What I saw was that if you screen the population for people with parents
who had a serious cancer before the age of 60 then they are the primarily
susceptible group. They are the ones who particularly need to avoid
carcinogens and EMFs. Their children are the ones at higher risk of
developing leukaemia when exposed to EMFs (etc). But this sort of
"filtering" is not politically acceptable at present when analysing
epidemiological data. I predict that if this filtering were done then odds
ratios would rise to over 10 for this group.
I am sorry that this "essay" has become so long!
Good wishes to all who read this!
The "Causes of leukaemia" bit follows.
Alasdair Philips
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alasdair Philips (aphilips@gn.apc.org)
Director, UK Powerwatch,
EMC Engineer and EMF-bioeffects researcher
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Development of cancers including childhood leukaemia:
The discovery that genetic damage lies at the root of cancer does not mean
most malignancies stem from the inheritance of seriously flawed genes. In
fact probably only about 5% of cancers are directly from this cause, though
many more people are at an elevated risk of developing cancers from other
causes due to minor differences in their genetic inheritance. The genetic
disruptions that transform a normal cell into a malignant one typically
arise in the course of living - via complex interactions between
carcinogens and the body’s systems for dealing with them.
For example, the p53 gene is one of the most frequently mutated in cancer.
In its healthy state, p53 is a tumour suppressor; it blocks the growth and
division of cells harbouring damaged genes. When the p53 gene itself is
mutated, disturbed cells are allowed to transmit potentially carcinogenic
genetic derangements to their progeny. Evidence from the National Cancer
Institute suggests that some patterns of mutation in p53 reflect exposure
to specific substances. Mutational patterns do not conclusively reveal the
identity of the agent that caused them. However, such patterns can help
spotlight the carcinogens at fault and send a warning that exposure must be
reduced.
It is now clear that whether a specific agent contributes to cancer depends
not only on the extent of exposure, but also on the effectiveness of the
individual body’s defence response. These responses are known to vary
profoundly between individuals which is why a given “dose” of a carcinogen
will only cause some people to develop cancer. These traits may lead to
rapid conversion of fairly quiescent carcinogens into active forms, or they
may render a person relatively ineffective at detoxifying carcinogens or
repairing the damage they do. To add to the complexity, certain genetic
traits may protect against one type of cancer but may predispose to another.
It is generally agreed that no one event is usually solely responsible for
the development of cancer, including childhood leukaemia, although
sometimes it is possible to show that a specific event was likely to be the
root cause. An example of this is that pre-natal X-rays of the maternal
abdomen does lead to a significantly increased incidence of childhood
cancer. However, in most cases it is not possible to isolate a single
event which was most likely to be responsible.
A person’s age at the time of exposure to a carcinogenic agent can
influence the probability that cancer will result. Foetuses, infants and
children may be at greater risk than adults from a variety of environmental
carcinogens. Studies show that the lifetime risk of cancer can be
heightened if exposure begins in utero or in childhood rather than adulthood.
The requirement for multiple events to give rise to an expressed (and hence
diagnosed) cancer reflects the fact that normal cells have multiple
protective mechanisms to regulate their growth and differentiation, and
several separate changes are usually needed to bypass these controls.
Three acknowledged causes of initial cell / DNA derangement are:
(i) Nuclear ionising radiation (including X-rays)
(ii) Various carcinogenic chemicals (including some in the benzene family)
(iii) Oncogenes carried by some viruses and retroviruses.
These can create “immortal” cells which have the capability to become
active cancer cells but are inhibited from developing to the next stage.
There is some evidence that paternal sperm can be damaged and thereby pass
on faulty DNA to as yet unborn children.
Some other insult then causes some of these cells to “transform”, that is
they fail to respond to normal constraints on growth. The final stage,
“metastasis”, occurs when the cells become fully tumorigenic and mobile,
which results in new cancer cell colonies developing in other parts of the
body. The most likely role that electric or magnetic fields may play in
this scenario is in weakening the human immune response, thereby allowing
cancerous cells to exist and multiply.
There is some evidence that they may also be able to cause “dormant’”
cancer cells to “transform” and become active. This has been clearly
demonstrated at cellular phone frequencies. At present there is no known
mechanism by which they can cause the original cell / DNA derangement,
although some researchers have put forward theories which attempt to show
that low levels of these fields can affect healthy cell membrane proteins
and thereby make the cells become more susceptible to carcinogenic
chemicals or viruses.
Alasdair & Jean Philips, October 1997
=================================================================
At 11:06 01/07/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi everybody:
>An excellent comment is forwarded below by Robert Pritchett.
>Allow me to say a couple things about the info that is there....
> ...snipped... look at the original message if you need to...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alasdair Philips (aphilips@gn.apc.org)
Director, UK Powerwatch,
EMC Engineer and EMF-bioeffects researcher
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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