Subject: Burden of Proof for Health Effects (Slesin).
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 195432 -0500
From: Roy Beavers
To: guru
--------------------------------------------------
Hi everybody:
It is always such a rare (rewarding) experience when we hear from our
esteemed colleague, Dr. Louis Slesin ... that it is very rude of me
to respond as I do here..... But I totally disagree with Louis....
In his response to Susan Clarke below, he ties the question of
"the burden of proof" in science to the need for a "consensus."
Now, Louis, YOU are talking like a politician!! I am the one who should
talk that way..... Not you, Louis. You ARE a scientist. Louis, you know
-- The truth is NEVER dependent upon consensus!!! Often, in history,
it has NECESSARILY BEEN a **minority** view.....!!
Worse, rarely, in the history of science has **"consensus" even recognized
the truth in the same generation it was discovered!!!......**
Your editorial below about the blood brain barrier is a good one. But it
says -- implicitly -- we (whomever you want "we" to be) are not going to
accept the evidence until it is "our" evidence..... We are not going to
accept the work of Allen Frey or the others you cite (including the U.S.
Army!) until "we" have done it....
Fine. There is certainly nothing wrong with "more research." But,
does that also confer upon those who take such a stand ... the right
to **ignore** the evidence others have produced??? Evidence that
contradicts the "consensus" "they" find more comfortable -- for getting
along with their political (bureaucratic) and industrial patrons???
Then -- as you correctly point out, Louis -- so long as "they" do not do
the research, are "they" entitled to deny the validity of Frey's (and the
others) work???
Or -- is it not incumbent upon them to use **the best evidence they now
have** as a basis for their "official" position and policies??? --Rather than
deny its validity ... while they procrastinate about the additional research
that they "talk" about, but do-nothing about.....???
I submit the latter paragraph is virtually a self evident "obligation" that
is the responsibility of any and all of our "science" public officials......
The "ostrich head in the sand" position that they are taking (like those
you are writing about in your editorial) ... is not science -- that is
rationalization..... That is **bias** -- against even the **seeking of
the truth**.....
Those who have public health responsibility in such matters -- and who
rationalize the existing evidence in that manner (for whatever reason --
but we DO know why) are guilty of **malfeasance** in office: failure to
perform one's lawful duty..... (Just as surely as the Firestone officials
who rationalized and failed in their lawful duty in the recent automobile
tire case.)
Do you really want to provide to such "science" the additional
rationalization -- as you appear to do below.....
Besides, Louis, as you well know ... there is MUCH MORE evidence than the
blood brain barrier research....!!! There is PLENTY of evidence to say:
EMF can do harm to human health ... and it is doing so NOW ... in some
work place and home environments (probably including the cell phones).
Cheerio...... (My esteemed friend and colleague.)
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com
It is better to light a single candle
than to curse the darkness..
WEBSITE: http://emfguru.com
People are more important than profit$$
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Burden of Proof for Health Effects
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 19:11:50 -0400
From: mwn@pobox.com (Louis Slesin / Microwave News)
To: roy@emfguru.com
This is a belated reply, with apologies, to Susan Clarke, about how much
evidence is needed to meet some burden of proof about EMF health effects.
I cannot be as specific as Susan Clarke asks. It is really a matter of
consensus for which there are no magic formulas. The only way to achieve
consensus is to do the necessary studies.
And there lies the frustration with much of the RF/MW radiation health
debate...Very little is ever settled because so little research gets
funded.
For instance, at the present time, not a single study on cell phone
radiation is being carried out in the U.S. This is a remarkable state of
affairs given that over 100,000,000 people now use cell phones in the U.S.
alone and that there are more than 100,000 cell phone towers (an educated
guess) across the country.
We ran an editorial in Microwave News at the end of last year pointing to
one example of an effect that has never been adequately addressed:
RF/MW-induced permeability of the blood-brain barrier. It ran in our
November/December 1999 issue and is available free on our Web site.
I reproduce it here:
_____________
A Simple Wish for 2000
A hallmark of electromagnetic health controversies is that they are never
resolved. When an effect is reported, it is quickly countered with an
opposing result and the contradiction is left to fester.
It's time to resolve one important microwave health effect: whether
low-level microwave radiation can cause leakage through the blood-brain
barrier (BBB).
This fall, the European and Australian press warned that Swedish
researchers are concerned that mobile phones could cause chemicals to pass
through the BBB, possibly leading to Alzheimer's and other neurological
diseases. This was hardly news. The same Swedish team had announced a
BBB-microwave effect more than seven years ago (see MWN, J/A92). And even
then it was not news.
Dr. Allan Frey first reported the BBB effect 25 years ago, and U.S. Army
researchers confirmed it in 1977.
The BBB work is as controversial today as it was then. James Merritt of the
U.S. Air Force tried to debunk the BBB effect at the recent Moscow
conference --just as he had tried to refute Frey's original work a
generation earlier.
The impact of microwaves on membrane permeability has important
implications for cell phones. The risk is not limited to the brain: The
eye-blood barrier has also been shown to be vulnerable.
This is a clearly defined problem and could be settled without a major
research program. It is about time.
_____________
Our wish is still a long way from coming true.
Best,
Louis Slesin
>Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:56:13 -0400
>From: Susan Clarke
>
>Louis Slesin is right on in many respects, but not in his last clause,
>"we will not know if there are health risks".
>
>I would ask Dr. Slesin to reveal to List members what types of studies
>and medical case reports, and how many of each, perhaps with which p
>values and CIs, he feels would provide, say, "reasonable medical
>certainty" that there are health effects (not "risks").
>
>Then we can compare Dr. Slesin's criteria to other standard criteria -
>EPA, FDA, etc.
>
>Susan Clarke
>
__________________________________________________________
Louis Slesin, PhD
Editor, Microwave News
A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation
Phone: 212-517-2800; Fax: 212-734-0316
E-mail: , Internet:
Mail: PO Box 1799, Grand Central Station
New York, NY 10163, U.S.A.
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com