AND NOW ...

Handy Home Hints

Today we’re going to learn all about Whitewashing

(For those on the Home Cleaning course this session comes under the heading: Sweeping Under The Carpet)

On Wednesday 17th November 2004 a meeting was organised by Leicestershire Constabulary to address the concerns of Ian Dring and his family, and members of the Leics police force, over the death of his brother, police officer Neil Dring earlier this year from oesophageal cancer [see article here].

At least, that was what this meeting was originally understood to be about. Ian was at first given to believe that he would be allowed to take his own, truly independent, scientific expert along to balance the official line given by those putting the official point of view. Somehow, on the day, that’s not how it worked out and Ian found himself, along with over 100 police officers, being treated to the standard line from Professor Lawrie Challis, Head of the Government’s Mobile Telecommunications Health Research Programme.

Apparently all of the studies showing a potential health problem were “really very poor science”. I’m told that Dr Carl Blackman and Professor Ross Adey, along with others, came in for strong personal criticism of their research methods. This is wondrous strange and very disturbing: Carl Blackman is a former President of the prestigious and internationally respected (not to mention fundamentally relevant ) Bioelectromagnetics Society - you don’t get to that sort of position without being red-hot on the research front; As for Ross Adey, he was a top researcher for Motorola until he started turning up side-effects of their mobile communications products that didn’t fit too well in their business plan.

[Worth noting here that Airwave TETRA is a Motorola product].

Happily, though, I’m told that those attending this meeting were reassured to hear that research disputing these findings is “up to date rigorous science”. This, too, is puzzling, since all four (remember that number) such studies were conducted in the 1980’s whereas the latest of the eight (compare with previous number) showing the health problem were in 1996 and 1999 - over ten years later. So which is more up to date?? Worth noting, too, that almost half of that two-to-one majority of studies were conducted ‘in vivo’ (on living cells - regarded elsewhere in official reports as being a ‘good thing’), whereas all but one of the minority of studies failing to replicate the observed health effect were carried out ‘in vitro’ (on dead cell tissue - a ‘bad thing’) - so what’s with this ’rigorous science’??

The scientific community rightly puts far more value on others replicating your results than on just you replicating them several times. So it’s unfortunate that Prof Challis didn’t draw attention to the fact that the majority finding (the health risk) was replicated by a whole range of different research groups, whilst the ’no-risk’ findings were in three of the four cases led (in one case jointly) by the same person. And, yes, you’ve guessed it - he was a (US) government employee.

Given his sweeping (and highly questionable) criticisms of the research work of a number of top names in this field, it’s most surprising that Challis, so I’m told, rounded on Barrie Trower for his ’personal attack’ on Professor Colin Blakemore on his website. Not only is this a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black, it’s doubly inappropriate - since Barrie Trower doesn’t have a website. I’d be happy to pass on to Barrie Challis’ apology for such a totally unwarranted denigration of his character in front of over 100 people.

I can only assume that this was a misdirected reference to a piece on my website, to be found HERE. I dispute that this is in any way a ‘personal attack’, it is simply placing side by side (in a lighthearted way) statements that Blakemore has made in respect of research findings and the documented facts in respect of those same findings. If this is seen as an ‘attack’ then the reason does not lie in my presentation, but in the information that I am presenting - information which is directly ‘off the shelf’, so to speak.

Despite the fact that research at DSTL (Porton Down) is hailed as ‘disproving’ the health problem, I’m told that Prof Challis skipped quickly by the slide on that without comment. This may be because there were at least one or two in the audience who knew that the DSTL research was not about the issue that has raised health concerns - it is, in effect, an attempt to offer reassurance over something that nobody thought was a problem anyway. A bit like a pharmaceutical company trying to dispel concerns over research showing its product causes headaches and nausea - by producing a study showing that it doesn’t cause drowsiness! In the case of the DSTL study, it’s about intracellular calcium movement - movement within cells - whereas the Stewart Committee’s health warning was, quite specifically, about calcium efflux - leakage of calcium out of cells.

I’m informed also that one of the establishment figures at this meeting told the audience that the tumours in the Leicestershire force couldn’t be due to Tetra as they would’ve taken five years or more to develop. Considering that we’re into a whole new ball game here, unknown territory medically, this is a very dangerous assumption to be making. There is a widely-accepted view that this type of pulsed electromagnetic radiation disables the body’s own immune system; if so, then one would quite expect an abnormality such as a tumour to grow at a much accelerated rate, since there is nothing to slow it down.

Last, but not least, the rubbishing of highly-qualified professionals (which Challis claims to abhor) proceeded apace with the peremptory dismissal of the well-informed concerns of literally thousands of medical professionals who have signed the Freiburger appeal (see HERE). Apparently, despite having thoroughly investigated the environments and lifestyles of ever-increasing numbers of ever-younger, ever-less-responsive-to-treatment patients with a range of specific complaints, despite putting their reputations on the line on this issue, these thousands of highly qualified, highly motivated and greatly concerned experts aren’t epidemiologists and so don’t know what they’re talking about.

How fortunate we all are to have real armchair experts to put them right!

“Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth

And the truth isn’t what you want to see.

In the dark it is easy to pretend

That the truth is what it ought to be.“

From: Phantom of the Opera

By: Andrew Lloyd Webber

Footnote

Speaking at the National Society of Clean Air Conference, June 2004, Professor Lawrie Challis explicitly confirmed my observation earlier in that event - that the latest of several successful replications in the ‘80s and ’90s of the 1970s calcium efflux studies was in 1999, just five years ago.

In the presentation to Leicestershire police and Ian Dring, described above, I’m reliably informed that in addition to Adey and Blackman, Challis slated the work of Kittel, whose successful replication of the calcium efflux effect was published in 1996. Adey is the only researcher whose name appears on more than one successful replication study in the Stewart Report - both of his were published in 1982. In referring to the studies by these researchers Challis is explicitly acknowledging the existence of those successful replications - in the ’80s and ‘90s.

BUT

In an article on Tetra in the ‘Independent’, 23rd November 2004, Professor Challis is quoted as referring to “unreplicated research from the 1970s” in respect of this same issue.

Is it a ‘personal attack’ to make such facts known in respect of the Head of a Government research programme vital to the health and safety of the whole nation? Should a discreet veil be drawn over such an apparent gross contradiction?

Dr Grahame Blackwell

25th November 2004