Cellular
Phones: Are They Cellular Killer?
Summary: Allan Frey's bizarre pronouncement
1.
Investigation killer?: Biological research corrupted.
This led to that community's initiation and substantial
control of the funding for biological research and a persisting
mind-set. The result has been biological research corrupted
by conflicts of interest, research based on implicit assumptions
that make little sense biologically, and research inappropriate
because of erroneous notions.
2.
Information killer? Even today?, we don't have a credible
body of biological data (after
30
years and a hundred million cellular phone users)
Even today, the physics and engineering community's mind-set,
prominence as spokesmen, and influence over research funding
decisions continue. As a consequence, we don't have a credible
body of biological data involving electromagnetic fields on
which to base public health decisions.
Key decisions on such research have been influenced by persons
with vested interests."
But is a toxicology model appropriate as a guide for biological
research with electromagnetic fields?
3.
Cellular killer?
And a hundred million cellular phone users, who have not
given informed consent, are unwitting guinea pigs in a grand
biological experiment.4 S
May the rest of us (guinea pigs) keep on using those
data to make public health decisions?
Best regards
Miguel Muntané
----- Original
Message -----
From: ROY Beavers
To: m.co-di@eic.ictnet.es
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2003 2:58 AM
Subject: Allan Frey's bizarre pronouncement (Clarke)....
.....................Response
from EMF-L................
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Alan Frey's bizarre
pronouncement
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 21:53:31 -0400
From: lachanteuse1@juno.com
To: guru@emfguru.org
I would bet my entire net worth that Alan Frey was told to
"say that or else" by some prospective editor. Either
that, or he knew the game well enough to utter it proactively.
But then, Frey is not in the strict sense a public health
scientist (nor moral philosopher), so has no expertise out
of which to make such a pronouncement, anyway. It's the kind
of thing some people do in order to get published. And thoroughly
unethical. Frey: "I believe it would be unethical to
use much of it to make public health decisions," he writes
in the first paragraph ... with reference to "biological
data now available". Whatever are the data for, praytell?
May the rest of us keep on using those data to make public
health decisions! Cheers,Susan On Fri, 23 May 2003 14:01:17
-0500 ROY Beavers <guru@emfguru.org>
writes:
......................From
EMF-L................
An interesting article indeed!!!
This is a good
article. In many ways "right on." I particularly
like the historical background this extremely well qualified
author provides.
Our friend Allan
Frey does -- however -- leave one tantalizing, inexplicable
sentence dangling ... and totally unexplained........ (I think
'unjustified' by the data......)
"I believe
it would be unethical to use much of it to make public health
decisions," he writes in the first paragraph ... with
reference to "biological data now available" concerning
EMF health hazards/bioeffects.........????
Allan, who is
well known by long term readers of this list, seems to have
made that statement as if he thought IT WAS EXPECTED ... by
someone ... perhaps to protect his future welcome in "establishment"
circles.....??? (Or research funding???)
After all, Allan,
is not the data available on EMF superior to what the government
has on SECOND HAND SMOKE...........!!!
Still
-- the government has seen fit to "regulate" exposure
to second hand smoke..................guru.......... http://emfguru.org
Resolving
the question of whether cellular phones are safe has been
complicated by conflicting information about electromagnetic
fields (emfs): no danger; yes there is danger; well, we don't
know. This has been unsettling for the public and has put
pressure on health policy decision makers to act. But can
they take action based on the biological data now available?
I think not. In fact, I believe it would be unethical to use
much of it to make public health decisions.
This area of research in the United
States did not evolve as biological research normally does.
It basically had its origin in the physics and engineering
community's concern about the hazards of their high-power
radio equipment in the late 1930s. This led to that community's
initiation and substantial control of the funding for biological
research and a persisting mind-set. The result has been biological
research corrupted by conflicts of interest, research based
on implicit assumptions that make little sense biologically,
and research inappropriate because of erroneous notions. Even
today, the physics and engineering community's mind-set, prominence
as spokesmen, and influence over research funding decisions
continue. As a consequence, we don't have a credible body
of biological data involving electromagnetic fields on which
to base public health decisions.
What must be done to provide the decision
makers with a biological input? A sampling of documented events
will indicate the answer. The key fact is that the mind-set
of those who control the funding determines what is looked
at and thus what is found. And this must change if we are
to obtain the biological data necessary to decide if cellular
phones, with the characteristics they have today, are safe
to use.
Conflicts of Interest
In the 1980s, Nicholas Steneck, who
at the time was director of the Collegiate Institute for Values
and Science at the University of Michigan, received a major
grant from the National Science Foundation's Program for Ethics
and Values in Science and Technology. He and institute fellows
in biology and physics used it to do an in-depth case study
of this area of research; many of the conflicts of interest
they uncovered were documented in two books.1
One example is that for many years a
U.S. Air Force office has decided what research the Air Force
will fund to determine if emf exposure is hazardous. This
same office has been responsible for assuring residents that
there is no evidence of hazard, when the Air Force wished
to place radar (an emf source) in a residential area. Among
Steneck's conclusions: "The establishment that controls
RF (emf) bioeffects research has misled the public and researchers.
... Key decisions on such research have been influenced by
persons with vested interests."
There are unjustified implicit assumptions
underlying much of the research. One recent example is the
multimillion dollar National Toxicology Program studies on
carcinogenesis and promotion of 60-Hz magnetic fields of the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
It was assumed, for these studies and many others, that the
relevant magnetic field parameter for inducing biological
effects is a pure 60-Hz sine wave; and such was used in these
studies. But the public is exposed to something very different,
as the authors of the Toxicology Program studies admit2: "While
power line magnetic field exposures are predominantly sine-wave
fields, residential and occupational exposures may include
square waves, sawtooth waves, and other wave forms. Harmonics
(120 Hz, 180 Hz, etc.) may also be found. Further, as appliances
are switched on and off, spikes or transients in fields may
occur.... This study used linearly polarized, pure sine-wave
exposures at 60 Hz, with the fields turned on when the sine
wave was at zero amplitude and gradually increased over seven
to nine cycles (between 0.11 and 0.15 seconds) to full intensity,
and similarly gradually decreased to avoid transients. The
NIEHS studies evaluate the predominant component (60-Hz sine-wave
magnetic fields) without all the complexities of the exposures
that occur in residential and occupational settings."
The authors make the implicit assumption that a pure 60-Hz
sine wave is the relevant variable. In fact, there is reason
to believe this is not true. Others have also concluded from
their research that emf characteristics are critical as would
be expected with biological organisms.3
Another implicit assumption is that
a toxicology model (the higher the dose, the more the effect)
should be used as a frame of reference in the selection, design
and analyses of experiments. Thus experiments are funded to
look for a dose-response relationship between electromagnetic
field exposure and a biological variable. But is a toxicology
model appropriate as a guide for biological research with
electromagnetic fields? It's a crucial question, for our frame
of reference determines what we look at and how we look; as
a consequence, this determines what we find.
Electromagnetic fields are not a foreign
substance, a toxin to living beings, like lead or cyanide.
Rather, living beings are themselves electrochemical systems
that use electromagnetic fields in everything from protein
folding through cellular communication to nervous system function.
Toxicology is the wrong model as has been detailed in depth.3
There are other implicit assumptions
that have crippled research in this field. This area of biological
research is encumbered, for example, with a vocal few who
imagine that they are the possessors of "real truth."
They like to talk about the dogma, the "laws of physics."
If the data do not conform to the dogma, then the data must
be wrong.
But one does not challenge data with
the current dogma. That's upside down, it's the dogma that
is tested by data obtained with constantly increasing precision
of measurement and observation. This is the great leap in
thinking that created science out of the thinking of the Medieval
Age. It is to be expected that theories conceived at one level
of observation will have to be modified as observational ability
improves. But some scientists in this area implicitly assume
that they have reached a "fundamental" level of
understanding, which leaves no room for even more fundamental
levels of understanding.
A brief illustration will make this
point clear. In 1850, a trip from Washington, D.C., to Los
Angeles would have taken more than six months in a wagon pulled
by mules. Many times I have had breakfast in Washington and
flown 2,500 miles to Los Angeles and arrived in time for lunch.
If I went back in time to 1850 and stated the above, I'm sure
there would be some physicists who would flatly say that the
laws of physics show this is impossible--and then "prove"
it with elegant calculations on the muscle energy output of
mules and wagon axle friction. They would have been right
in their calculations but wrong in their implicit assumption
that they knew everything that will ever be known. This kind
of thinking has been frequent in this area of research, and
it has crippled the research and resulted in misleading information
in the literature.
Inappropriate Research
One example is all that is needed to
show why so much of the research has been fruitless. Twenty
years ago, an epidemiological study indicated power lines
may be associated with cancer genesis or promotion. Since
then, numerous epidemiological studies with the apparent intent
to prove or disprove that emfs cause or promote cancer have
yielded conflicting results, yet more are under way.
This is a misuse of epidemiology. Epidemiological
studies can't provide proof either way. Physicians do not
have a full understanding of cancer genesis and promotion,
and we lack emf measurements at individual residences in the
years before the diagnosis of cancer. Thus we have critical
unknowns. We don't even know what characteristics of the fields,
those many years ago, were important and what should be measured.
Clearly, endless epidemiological studies of unknowns cannot
prove or disprove anything about emfs and cancer.
The foregoing is a tiny sample of the
mind-set, conflicts of interest, implicit assumptions, and
inappropriate research, all well documented, that derailed
biological research needed to determine if emfs are a health
hazard. As a consequence, policy makers don't have the biological
data needed to determine if there is a hazard, and the public
is confused. And a hundred million cellular phone users, who
have not given informed consent, are unwitting guinea pigs
in a grand biological experiment.4 S
Allan H. Frey (afrey@uu.net),
is a biologist with Randomline Inc., a consulting and research
firm. His address is 11049 Seven Hill Lane, Potomac, MD 20854
References
1. N.H. Steneck, Risk/Benefit Analysis:
The Microwave Case, San Francisco, San Francisco Press, 1982,
and The Microwave Debate, Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press,
1984.
2. National Toxicology Program, Toxicology
and Carcinogenesis Studies of 60-Hz Magnetic Fields in F344/N
Rats and B6C3F1 Mice (Whole-Body Exposure Studies)-Draft,
Research Triangle Park, N.C., National Toxicology Program,
1998. (ehis.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/docs/tr488/488full.pdf).
3. A.H. Frey, editor, On the Nature
of Electromagnetic Field Interactions with Biological Systems,
Austin, Texas, R.G. Landes Co., 1994.
4. A.H. Frey, "Headaches from cellular
telephones: are they real and what are the implications?"
Environmental Health Perspectives, 106[3]101-3, 1998. (ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1998/106p101-103frey/abstract.html)
The
Scientist 14[23]:47, Nov. 27, 2000
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2000/nov/opin_001127.html
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