Betreff: Rod Read ES-UK v Ben Goldacre

Von: mastsicknessUK

Datum: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:15:45 EDT

 

 



Sandi,

 

I just sent this to half a dozen Guardian editors, their email addresses are on media lens website. Do circulate it if you wish,  I can't be arsed as my dirty-mouthed son says.

 

Cruel and unfair comment in your paper

 

Dear Alan Rusbridger,

 

Cards on the table, I have a clear interest. I am the director of the only registered charity to support and help electrosensitives, 400 now.  Our other registered aim is“to advance the education of the general public in all areas relating to electrosensitivity”. Yes, this letter goes on too long, but we have powerful feelings to vent.

 

In this capacity we entered in good faith into a dialogue with your Badscience columnist Dr Ben Goldacre, sending scientific reports and personal cases anticipating an objective and scientific, even typically Guardian response. One with some ‘liberal’ leanings towards understanding the context of the powerless, and indeed sick individual, up against powerful gung ho corporations and a modernising government licensing this technology for huge rewards (£25 billions for one round) . We work in a very hostile environment with distortions of ‘the science’, so hoped for fairness.

  Far from it, he selects only studies which suit his orientation, ignores the contributions of Dr George Carlo, the medical specialist and man who supervised the 25 million dollar US Cellphone Safety Research and who has spoken in the House of Commons on this subject.

 

 I suppose if you have read this far you think I have a case of ‘Sour Grapes’.

 

Well on that front I only ask for a fair hearing, for your readers benefit too. Ben G is usually right about the quacks and health solution peddlers, we tell him so, but we are different, there is a great deal of  scientific evidence on our side of this debate, else why would Sir William Stewart speak out on Panorama (21.5.07) and set up a new Health Protection Agency committee to “help develop suitable precautionary advice for the general public regarding exposure to electromagnetic fields” (press release HPA 27.04.06).

Our chief scientific advisor Alasdair Philips sits on that committee, but Ben G excoriates his credentials and has gloried in publicising a powerful personal animus against him, repeatedly, and in your columns. He never once mentioned Sir William when commenting on the Panorama programme but attacked Alasdair, who also sits on a DoH committee, SAGE, is senior science advisor and Conference Organiser to ‘Children with Leukaemia’ and can stick up for himself, so enough of that. But such ad hominem attacks are an abuse of your columns and readership we feel, and have been subtly extended to myself and ES-UK as   deliberate self-interested deceivers of vulnerable ill people. That is low, even vile.

Worse.

Unable to refute, even with one-sided science, the reality of people with the electrosensitive condition, Ben G has withdrawn into a defensive corner dancing on his scientific pin where he grants, with hollowly effusive but genuinely patronising, condescension, that “the symptoms are real but sufferers of them are deluded as to their cause being ‘electrosmog’”. I paraphrase a little, not much, ask him.

 

Our members who encounter this in your paper are really hurt, wounded at this dismissal of their rational and sensible capabilities. This denial of their powers of comprehension and common-sense damages other aspects of their lives, relationships, work, confidence etc. It is injurious, iniquitous even, insulting and de-humanising; they repeatedly tell me so. It is an untenable absurdity which does not reflect compassion, as he has dared to claim, but is cruelly arrogant, he goes so far as to suggest we as ES-UK in representing them are instead corrupting and misleading them, preventing their chances of proper diagnosis and treatment of whatever is ‘really’ ailing them.

 

Other science and technology journalists on your paper seem to congregate without exception around this position, Dr James Randerson for instance. So your newspaper’s line is now far and away the most dismissive of our case we have to deal with. Quite outside your long-standing factual traditions which have had me reading it for over forty years. Geoff Lean on the Independent has reported sympathetically on our situation as has the Mail and The Times on WiFi in schools especially, and the Telegraph’s Nic Fleming is always scrupulously fair.

 

Please if you feel it worth your time have a look at the correspondence in the BMJ website at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/334/7606/1249#170160 or for real virulence from some of his acolytes his own website on www.badscience.net/ speaks for itself on this issue.

 

A readers response would be something, I was invited, wrote one and then was disallowed.

If you really have time I enclose a sample case below, one sent to Ben G but never ever referred to.

Yours sincerely

Rod Read

 

ElectroSensitivity-UK registered charity 1103018.Rod Read M.Phil.,(Cantab), Dip Psych Couns., Cert.Ed. director.

Trustees: Professor of Human Radiation Effects Dr Denis Henshaw, Dr David Dowson MD., ChB, Jean Philips BA. Scientific advice from: Alasdair Philips, BSc(Eng), DAgE, MIAgE, MInstPhys., Keith Jamieson Dip.AAS. Bsc(Hons) RIBA. Inst.Ph., Environmental Consultant. John.Rogers. ONC: HND: FMAA., and others. This is not a private communication and may be circulated more widely in pursuance of our registered aims of supporting sufferers and educating the public about all aspects of electrosensitivity. For more information go to:  http://www.electrosensitivity.org.uk  

http://www.radiationresearch.org/   and  http://www.tetrawatch.net/main/index.php

 

 The Old Mill, Beeston, Nottingham

 

Brian Stein is the Chief Executive of Samworth Brothers.  A ÂŁ500 million pa. turnover chilled food manufacturer based in the Midlands manufacturing quality chilled foods for all the major retailers. 

MBA from the Open University. 

Chairs Leicestershire Cares and Leicester Common Purpose. 

Married with 3 children 

A sports fanatic, bridge player and keen Liverpool supporter. 

As a result of his job, a very heavy mobile phone user for 15 years who became ES at the end of 2000. He runs the very large business with an electricity free office and a highly efficient secretary he says.

 

Originally an email to the Guardian newspaper, Dr Ben Goldacre ‘Badscience’ columnist. This is commonsense not ‘rocket science’.

 

“Sirs,

 

Having been copied in on some of the emails bouncing around between yourselves, Rod Read and Alasdair Philips, I thought I might add my two penny worth.

 

Your arguments on the face of it are very sound but I think lacking some Common Sense and certainly lacking any serious investigation into the subject.

 

Over ten years ago Dr George Carlo discovered while working for the cell phone industry that microwaves damaged cells, damaged DNA and damaged the blood brain barrier.  He carried out the experiments on cell cultures and repeated them on rats.  That’s when the cell phone industry pulled the plug on his research.  What did the media say about this?  Almost no comments.  Why?  The first serious investigation into wireless technology and the industry gets away with stopping the research when it tells it something it didn’t want to know.

 

A dozen years later, we finally get around to repeating these experiments officially and what do we find.  Exactly the same (The Reflex Project sponsored by the EU at Universities in Berlin, Vienna, Stuk, Bologna, Milan, Hanover).  Microwaves are damaging cells in cultures.  What does the cell phone industry say to these experiments?

 

1.                  It’s only in ‘cell’ cultures!  So it doesn’t mean anything.

 

2.                  No ‘people’ are affected.

 

Now this is when it requires some Common Sense.  Experimentation is showing we have a problem.  Damaging cells.  The industry and the scientists have been saying for years this is not possible.  Common Sense – the scientists are Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.  What is the consequence for this science if they are wrong?

 

There are thousands if not millions of people across all the countries that have developed wireless technology that are now becoming electrically hypersensitive.

 

Common Sense.  Damage being done to cells and people becoming ES.  Maybe there is a connection.  This ES condition has only been around for 20/30 years, approximately the length of time that wireless technology has been around.

 

I work in the food industry.  Approximately one year ago a food scandal hit the headlines, Sudan 1 in ready meals.  The company I work for had to throw ÂŁ1/4 M of ready meals away because a scientist had shown that rats eating tons of Sudan 1 developed cancer.

 

Common Sense.  Microwaves, at many times less than the legal limit are destroying cells in rats.  The mobile phone industry says it’s not a problem.  Guardian agrees not a problem.  Sudan 1 damages rats at thousands of times above the permitted level.  Problem.  Recall all the product.  Headlines in newspapers - Ready Meals cause cancer alert.

 

If I as a food manufacturer had used the argument that the mobile phone industry had used, I think that I would have hit the headlines.  If I had refused to destroy stock with Sudan 1 in it, what would you have thought of me?  What would your headlines have said?  Why are you applying double standards for the mobile phone industry?   Why do ‘you’ let them get away with their deceit?  Might ‘you’ be being influenced, like the Government, without even realising it, that they spend a lot of money with you?

 

Common Sense

 

Multiple Schlerosis.

Chronic fatigue syndrome.

Fibromyalgia.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

Light Sensitivity.

Hyper Acusis.

Pea Nut Allergy.

 

All started off according to our medical and scientific community being psychosomatic.   They were wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

Common Sense

 

You could write a book on all the things that human beings can be sensitive to.  Pollen, chemicals, medicines, light, dark, pea nuts.  This list is almost endless.

 

So, pea nuts can kill us but the one thing that no one can be sensitive to, is putting microwaves to your head for 20 years.  This does not even sound logical.

 

All these things devised by god or nature can kill you but microwaves devised by man, at these extraordinary levels, can’t do you any harm?????

 

Isn’t that what they said about Radiation, X Rays, and Pylons?

 

Do you not have any Common Sense?

 

Newspapers have been the scourge of establishment.  Forcing scientists to admit the truth about food scares, BSE, Global Warming, the ‘cover ups’, you know better than me, are too numerous to mention.  But microwaves to the head, and all these people having their lives ruined, no cover up.  Whiter than white, all these people are deluded.

Mass hysteria.

 

FACT

 

I used a mobile phone for 15 years.  14 years not a problem, no issues.

 

15th year.  Severe pain in my head and ear, only when I put the mobile to my head. Why is my pain, psychosomatic?

 

Put the phone to my head.  Instant pain, take it away and pain goes away.  Problem.  What is happening???  This can’t happen!

 

Although I cut down on using my mobile I did not stop completely.  Why, good question.  I was assured by all it was only temporary and like a fool I believed the scientists, the medics, the media.

 

Then, one day putting the mobile to my head an explosion in my ear.  So much pain I could not bear the mobile to my head.  This can’t happen!  Thereafter, the weird experience I had over the twelve months earlier using a mobile phone, I started to experience in front of my computer, in front of my TV and in my car.

 

This developed over time to an ordinary phone, video, washing machine, dish washer etc.  Whatever damage the mobile phones/microwaves, can do had been done to me.

 

When you become hypersensitive to something, it is not confusing, it is not a case of I don’t feel well, I wonder what it is, can it be my microwave!!!  Its use a phone for 5 minutes – pain in ear and head.  Don’t use the phone – no pain.  Use the phone – pain.  Don’t use the phone – no pain.  After you have done this experiment on yourself a few hundred times, it becomes more than a coincidence.  I have been studying ES for 5 years.  Every hour, of every day, of every month for 5 years.  Believe me it is not confusing.

 

Wishing to prove my condition I signed up for the tests at Kings College and had to pull out when I found what they wanted to do to me.  I did suggest a less invasive way of proving this but was ignored.  Last year I signed up for the test at Essex University and attended the first of three sessions to prove this condition.  I ignored my cynicism because the questionnaire seemed to be only concerned with my financial state and levels of stress.  I ignored the fact that the people were psychologists, not scientists.   I ignored the fact that they couldn’t tell me the level of strength of the mast.  I ignored the fact that they had not consulted anyone ES when devising the tests and I went ahead with the first one hour session.

 

THE RESULT

 

I have been made permanently worse; I had to pull out of the remaining tests.    Although double blind I knew that the mast was on.  How, I bled internally for two weeks.  That is what happens to me when I get too close to a mast for too long.  Bleeding internally, can this be psychosomatic I ask myself.  Perhaps my gut has decided to join in on this misinformation.  Maybe my gut is in league with my brain in deluding me.  I went to my doctor when I first bled.  He referred me to a Specialist.  The Specialist was very chatting and friendly until I told him why I was bleeding.  I then became the enemy.  A  lunatic.  I had a barium enema and a colonoscopy.  All clear.

 

When I asked therefore why I could be bleeding (I was bleeding before and after the investigation) I was told by the Specialist in a very aggressive voice “THERE IS NO REASON WHY YOU SHOULD BE BLEEDING”.   He didn’t want to see my stool, didn’t want to check the most obvious way of telling if I was being truthful or not.  End of Examination, Go Home!

That is what it is like being ES.  The tests have been devised so that the people who are best able to prove this condition are precluded.  People find it inconvenient to be more thorough.  Don’t ask the obvious questions, simply dismiss it and trust the scientists investigating this, sponsored by the mobile phone industry.  No reason to be concerned.

 

In theory, this should not happen.

 

If damaged by a drug, I don’t think the drug industry saying we didn’t do any research into this drug because in theory it should be safe, would be good enough. The mobile phone industry gets away with it.  They are not required to do any safety research because the NRPB (HPA) are responsible for this and of course they are totally independent and impartial like the newspaper industry.  Who do not want to rock the boat.

 

When I challenge scientists, politicians, health industry, NRPB, Media, that this is not difficult to prove I can prove it.   They change the subject.  I could go on for hours but why bother.

 

Sadly, you and your family have to become affected to rock the boat.  I hope you have the good grace to apologise in a few years time when your collective incompetence results in millions of people being affected because that is what will happen. Correction, this is what is happening while you don’t use your common sense or investigate this seriously.

 

If the research is correct, that it causes geno-toxin effects, single and double stranded DNA breaks, damage to chromosomes and reductions in melatonin, how will this be detected in humans when doctors, specialists, scientists etc refuse to examine us seriously.  The best any ES person has had is a two minute examination and the assurances we are perfectly OK.

 

If these things are happening, what symptoms are we allowed to have?  Please advise me.  What symptoms am I allowed to have if I am suffering from the above!!!

 

Meanwhile, incidents of brain tumours, mouth tumours, ear tumours, eye tumours, once very rare, are all suddenly appearing and increasing.  Probably psychosomatic.

 

 

Wake up.”

 

 

Brian Stein 17.5.06

 



ElectroSensitivity-UK (registered charity 1103018) Rod Read M.Phil.,(Cantab), Dip Psych Couns., Cert.Ed.director. helping the vulnerable minority reacting to electromagnetic fields, microwaves, RF etc. all 'electrosmog'.

 ES-UK Office, Bury Lane, Sutton, Ely, Cambs, CB6 2BB. Tel: 01353-778151 or at www.electrosensitivity.org.uk