Exactly.
To think that an industry can, in today's transparent, Internet-based, Wikileaks, hacker driver world, control thousands of scientists around the globe is just silly and on par with other super-conspiracy theories such as the moon landings never happened.
Secondly, to pick one single study or scientist as your 'aha' moment to 'prove' your own viewpoint again shows lack of understanding of the environment and/or the scientific process.
Phew. Our rough, tough experts on the real world out there, really do not have the faintest clue what is really going down on the ground.
Let's take a couple of examples.
Asbestos: In 1918, the Prudential insurance company wrote a letter to the US government, giving them a heads up. Prudential was no longer going to insure asbestos workers, because these people died young, and the company could see in its loss ratios that this was not a good bet. It took over 40 years before medical science caught up, and said -- hey, look, asbestos kills people.
Tobacco: For decades, the tobacco companies snowed the field with spurious studies. Decades. To this day, they are still at it. On this forum, I recounted a story told by Jonathan Kaplan, an SA medic and author of the book
The Dressing Station. He is offered a job as a "medical copywriter". Basically, he must write scientific articles with a specific slant. He is told "Money is no object", he can name his price. He asks for an example of what he would have to do. Oh, here's a study showing that the statistics about smoking causing cancer are actually in a grey area, he must slant the paper to make this clear. He walks out.
Go see the true-life story,
The Insider, with Russell Crowe playing Jeffery Wigand, a big tobacco researcher. The movie has a real-life clip of the CEOs of the tobacco companies, all lining up at a judicial hearing, and swearing on the Bible that they believe tobacco is not addictive. Meanwhile, Wigand reveals, they are doing absolutely everything they can to uncover the mechanisms of addiction and reinforce them. Example: it was found that the "kick" when you first light up, is incredibly important in the addiction process (this is why so many cigarette ads featured a match being struck, to trigger this craving in people). The scientists worked on finding what combination of chemicals would enhance this kick, even as their CEOs were flatly denying any knowledge of addictive properties of cigarettes.
Go and see the fictional movie,
Thank You For Smoking, for a very realistic picture of what goes on in that industry, with some very true stories, like the Marlboro Man with lung cancer. It ends with the spin-master moving over to the cellphone industry. At the end of the movie, he asks three cellphone execs whether their phones cause brain cancer. All three speak together. One splutters a denial, another says "Well there are studies ..." and the third says "There was that unfortunate incident in Iowa..." The hero smiles. "Say after me, he says," "There is no absolutely no conclusive evidence linking cellphones to brain cancer..."
Pharmaceuticals: This industry is legendary for its skulduggery with research. A recent example: Merck, manafucturers of the controversial drug Vioxx, hired such "ghostwriters" to produce papers saying there were no problems with this drug. Other scientists then put their names to these papers. When this was uncovered, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, said Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, JAMA’s editor-in-chief, was quoted as saying, “The manipulation is disgusting. I just didn’t realise the extent."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24136335/print/1/displaymode/1098/
But in their own way, all of these industries are absolute infants in deception and manipulation compared with the mobile phone business.
It is very clear to me that none of you have worked in a university science department, doing research and watching research being done first hand. Everyone is scrabbling for money; competition for grants and grad students is intense. American academics spend about as much time filling out grant applications as they do researching.
Very quickly, you learn that certain fields are very dodgy; there is not a lot of money for research in them, and the telecoms companies sponsor lots of academic chairs and research, so heads of department are terrified of offending them. As a researcher, you learn very soon that ANY research whatsoever showing biological effects at low radiation levels, is likely to get you into trouble.
Take one example. Seven different labs, in three different continents, all found the same result: extremely low magnetic fields could disrupt the functioning of a breast-cancer drug. Higher field levels did not produce the same result. This research had important consequences: a woman using this breast cancer drug who operated a photocopier, for example, could nullify the drug's effect.
A Japanese researcher then had a major breakthrough, and produced exactly what the industry most does NOT want: a worked-out mechanism explaining this effect. And of the latest researcher to replicate this result,
Microwave News had this to say:
"If Rainer Girgert of Germany’s University of Heidelberg, the lead author of this latest replication, meets with the same fate as his six predecessors, he may soon lose his research grants — or perhaps worse, as happened to Robert Liburdy who first saw this same effect years ago."
http://www.microwavenews.com/fromthefield.html
Because they made these important findings, ALL of these researchers lost their grants, and were unable to continue with their work.
So-called "comprehensive reviews" of the field, with thousands of references, manage to miss out all of these seven studies. They simply do not exist.
Prof Olle Johansson, of the Experimental Dermatology unit at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, has produced a string of the most elegant, brilliantly designed studies, getting to the heart of the issues with cellphones and EMR. From looking at power levels radiated by handsets in rural areas, and correlating this with Alzheimer's, to looking at the field patterns around a metal bed and correlating this with breast cancer asymmetries, to seeing how melanoma incidence rose across the Baltic states as they introduced VHF radio and UHF television, to looking at all sorts of medical indicators in the year Sweden got cellphones -- Olle has done the most incredible work. He is known and loved by thousands of people all over the world whom he has helped.
What is Olle's status at Karolinska? He is constantly attacked and insulted, is told he is an embarrassment to the university, has his research grants cut, and is moved into a tiny office where he cannot even keep his books. The message is given out, very loud and clear, by the university administration: We DO NOT WANT this research.
Olle has had over 30 death threats, but is not deterred. Can you name a world-famous researcher in another field who has had so many death threats?
Another example. Mr Barrie Trower, retired British military intelligence scientist and world expert in microwave warfare, applied to do a PhD at his alma mater, I think it was Leicester University. They were delighted to hear that he had raised funding for a PhD -- until they discovered that it was about health and cellphones. He was very firmly told: "Do not
ever contact us again. We
never want to hear from you again."
He tried three other universities, and was told exactly the same thing. He was lecturing nuclear physics at a college near his home, when they heard that he had given expert evidence in a trial in Greece, the famous Vodacom bugging case where top Greek politicians had their phones bugged. He gave testimony on the technical details of how this was done. (The Vodacom engineer who might have been able to tell the full story mysteriously committed suicide the day before he was due to go on honeymoon -- Barrie says this was total nonsense, it was no suicide.)
You might think that one of your lecturers giving expert testimony in a major international trial, might actually be applauded by a college. Instead, Barrie was told very firmly NEVER to set foot on the college grounds again. He said he had marking to do -- they said, don't worry about it. Just don't set foot here again. He said -- I have papers to collect at my office. They said, come at night, after hours, take your stuff, and go.
Barrie says he is way behind Olle Johansson. He has only had three death threats. One by telephone; one in writing; and one face-to-face in a forest in Dartmoor while walking his dog.
Barrie was first trained in microwave warfare when he became an underwater bomb disposal expert. The Sovs, with their RF expertise, were using microwave booby traps.
I know some of you think you are real hot-shots with microwaves -- but can you imagine working under water, with a live bomb, and doing microwave measurements that could make the thing blow up? I'm just saying, Barrie has nerves of steel, and anyone who thinks he will frighten easily, has another think coming.
His very first lesson in microwave warfare was very simple. Microwaves are incredibly dangerous; never, ever, ever expose yourself to microwaves if you can avoid it. He says that in his day, all RF engineers knew this. The new young lot, he says, just don't know.
Anyway, if you're interested, this is why Barrie Trower will remain as plain Mister, and will not be getting a doctorate any time soon. The universities WILL NOT PERMIT him to do this research on their watch. They are too worried about losing grants and getting in trouble with the government. And there is no manipulation?
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