Subject: (Curry) Re "A Change in the Wind," EMFL-9-96.html (fwd)
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 132502 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:07:19 -0600
From: "Bill P. Curry"
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: Re: "A Change in the Wind," EMFL-9-96.html (fwd)
Roy,
I think your '96 essay is superb! My great embarassment is that the
organization to which I belong (American Physical Society) has made a direct
and dogmatic (religious???) statement that there is no EMF problem, insofar as
implications for human health are concerned. I think this is far from being
proven - for either power lines or for RF.
Part of the problem for me, as a physicist, is the difficulty of establishing
a damage mechanism. I am lost without a mechanism, because you can model a
physical situation in quantitative terms if you can hypothesize a mechanism.
Then, you can compare the results of the predictions you get from this model
with the results you get from experiments. If the two sets of results
disagree and you have confidence in the experimental results, then you must
either discard the model and replace it with a more realistic one or else (in
some instances) "fine tune" the model - not the experiments - until the two
agree. When the model correctly describes experimental reality, then you can
further use the model to establish how low the incident radiation intensity
(or power line fields - if these are the sources in question) have to be to
reduce the biological damage threat to an "acceptable" level. (Who determines
what is acceptable and how these criteria are derived is well beyond the scope
of my reasoning.)
Clearly the above illustration of the "scientific method" (somewhat
paraphrased from how we were all taught it in high school) also applies to
epedemiological evidence, but it is more difficult for me, as a physicist, to
know how to use it, and I think this is one reason that the radiation research
community (of which I am not a member - that is really outside of my primary
range of expertise) tends to put more reliance on laboratory experiments than
on epedemiological evidence. Another reason may be the difficulty of
unravelling the truth through elaborate statistical analyses of many case
studies. Most physicist's training in statistics is limited to two areas (I
think): 1) statistical mechanics and 2) statistical analysis of error
propagation in experiments. In my opinion, neither of these areas of training
adequately prepare physical scientists for the kind of use of statistical
analyses that biometricians and social scientists have effectively made use of
in recent years.
The memo that I am trying to circulate (with difficulty because of its
graphical content) is intended to suggest one possible model that might lead
to a damage mechanism for microwave radiation incident on DNA molecules in
human cells. I make no claim that - even if correct - this model and
associated damage mechanism are the only possibilities. I think the EMF
debate should consider whether known damage mechanisms and their associated
derived damage thresholds should be supplemented - because they do not
sufficiently well describe the reality suggested by epedemiological studies or
whether they are simply being incorrectly applied. While there may well be
new and subtle damage mechanisms that have not been adequately studied, my
memo addresses the possibility that the old mechaniosms may still apply, but
the arguments based on these mechanisms have perhaps been too restrictively
applied. Very simply put, I think there are so many modes of energy storage
of complicated organic molecules like DNA, that the total vibrational energy
storage in any one molecule of an ensemble of molecules in equilibrium with an
outside radiation source may well exceed conventional damage thresholds - even
though the energy stored in any one molecular mode does not do so. In my
memo, I attempted to show this graphically and through the use of a few
equations. The premise of this argument is so simple that I am astounded that
it wouldn't have been previously considered. Perhaps it has been.
--
----
Bill P. Curry, Ph.D. |Physics is fun.
EMSciTek Consulting Co. |Trying to make a living!
22W101 McCarron Road, |Phone: (630) 858-9377
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137 |Fax: same, but require prior notice
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html