Far more frequently than I’d like it to be necessary, I find myself writing about various health fear mongering about cell phones and wifi. The idea that the radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation used by cell phones and wireless networks is somehow causing horrendous health effects in humans, be it cancer (brain, breast, or other), behavioral problems, mental illness, or whatever is, like antivaccine pseudoscience, a claim not supported by evidence that just will not go away. Indeed, some take it a step further, inventing a syndrome called “electromagnetic hypersensitivity,” in which certain people are especially sensitive to the claimed adverse health effects due to radio waves. It doesn’t help, either, that organizations like the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) erroneously categorized cell phone radiation as a “possible carcinogen” or that the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) wasted $25 million on a study of cell phone radiation in rats that, at the time of a partial report of its results for gliomas and cardiac schwannomas, had produced singularly unconvincing results for a link between cell phones and cancer, but it produced sensationalistic headlines claiming a link. As of last month, the full study has shown no more convincing evidence. As Dr. Christopher Labos explained last week, the results are most consistent with random noise. It’s even gotten to the point where some have tried to label smart watches as dangerous.
The latest magazine to publish a sensationalistic story about cell phones is The Nation. Amusingly, someone in The Nation‘s PR department thought it would be a good idea to send me a link a week ago, as though I might blog about it. Of course, I’m happy to oblige, because this story is an example of much of what is wrong with reporting on the issue of cell phones and health effects due to cell phone radiation. Written by Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie and entitled “How Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe: A Special Investigation.” Its tagline? The disinformation campaign—and massive radiation increase—behind the 5G rollout. The basic thesis of the article is that “big wireless” is a lot like “big tobacco” in hiding the science or preventing definitive science from being done because, presumably, it has something to hide. It’s the very same sort of argument that antivaxers like to make about big pharma and vaccines, likening vaccine manufacturers to big tobacco and claiming the same sort of disinformation campaign that big tobacco waged for decades to hide, minimize, and obfuscate the emerging scientific evidence of the harm cigarette smoking was causing through causing lung cancer, heart disease, and a variety of other diseases.
No one, least of all I, is claiming that big telecom and big pharma are pristine, as clean as the driven snow. We do know from science, however, that vaccines do not cause autism and that cell phone radiation not only does not cause the health effects attributed to it but almost certainly cannot cause those health effects because the energy carried by radio waves is too low to do what is claimed. It’s basic physics. For instance, I like to say that, although a link between cell phone radiation and cancer is not homeopathy-level implausible, it is incredibly implausible, simply because most of mechanisms of carcinogenesis we know involve as an inciting event the breaking of chemical bonds in DNA to cause mutations, and even the mechanisms we’re coming to understand that might require chemical bond breakage as an inciting event are incredibly unlikely to be impacted by such low energy waves.
Enter The Nation.
A disingenuous disclaimer
In discussing The Nation‘s fear mongering story, I can’t help but start part way through the article, with its disclaimer:
This article does not argue that cell phones and other wireless technologies are necessarily dangerous; that is a matter for scientists to decide. Rather, the focus here is on the global industry behind cell phones—and the industry’s long campaign to make people believe that cell phones are safe.
That campaign has plainly been a success: 95 out of every 100 adult Americans now own a cell phone; globally, three out of four adults have cell-phone access, with sales increasing every year. The wireless industry is now one of the fastest-growing on Earth and one of the biggest, boasting annual sales of $440 billion in 2016.
This disclaimer is disingenuous in the extreme, given that the central theme of the article is that, as big tobacco and big oil worked to hinder research examining the deleterious health effects of smoking or the effects of the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, respectively, and spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about scientific results that cast their products in a bad light, big telecom has engaged in a multidecade campaign to do the same with results that allegedly show adverse health effects from cell phone radiation. The reason? As the passage above claims, it was all about profits, just as it was for the tobacco and fossil fuels industries. The way the authors cherry pick studies to cite and how they portray the telecom industry leads one to picture its executives twirling their moustaches as people die of brain cancer from their products, I call BS on the disclaimer above. This article has a point of view, and that point of view boils down to: (1) cell phones are harmful and (2) the telecom industry has been covering up science supposedly showing those harms.
Indeed, the article starts off with a description of how George Carlo was led off the premises of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) grounds:
Things didn’t end well between George Carlo and Tom Wheeler; the last time the two met face-to-face, Wheeler had security guards escort Carlo off the premises. As president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), Wheeler was the wireless industry’s point man in Washington. Carlo was the scientist handpicked by Wheeler to defuse a public-relations crisis that threatened to strangle his infant industry in its crib. This was back in 1993, when there were only six cell-phone subscriptions for every 100 adults in the United States. But industry executives were looking forward to a booming future.
Remarkably, cell phones had been allowed onto the US consumer market a decade earlier without any government safety testing. Now, some customers and industry workers were being diagnosed with cancer. In January 1993, David Reynard sued the NEC America Company, claiming that his wife’s NEC phone caused her lethal brain tumor. After Reynard appeared on national TV, the story went viral. A congressional subcommittee announced an investigation; investors began dumping their cell-phone stocks; and Wheeler and the CTIA swung into action.
Lorne Trottier has called Carlo an “industry gadfly,” and he’s correct. My reading of his activities and publications since the 1990s suggest to me that he’s also become a bit of a crank. Let’s just put it this way. If you’re featured on Whale.to with a glowing profile, the chances that you’re championing good science are slim and none. Indeed, Carlo’s work is widely cited by the usual assortment of cranks and quacks promoting “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” diagnoses and selling “shielding” and blankets that are claimed to protect you from the dreaded electrosmog. Also, one can’t help but note that Carlo’s publication record dropped off precipitously to near zero after around 2000, with only three publications between 2013 and 2015 since then. I also can’t help but note that I could find around the time of the events described in this article (the 1990s) only one paper co-authored by Carlo and published in the New England Journal of Medicine that looked at the effect of cell phone radiation on implantable pacemakers. His relative dearth of publications even before he took over the WTR project makes me wonder whether he was actually competent to oversee the studies tasked to him.
Indeed, Carlo published a paper claiming to have found a link between cell phone radiation and autism. It was unimpressive, so much so that Steve Novella blogged about it. Let’s just say that he didn’t think it was an example of good science. (Actually, he described it as “a mishmash of pseudoscientific nonsense.”) I note, however, that, while Dr. Novella was unimpressed, Whale.to was quite impressed, so much so that it’s hosting a copy of the study.
Things left unsaid
In fairness, The Nation‘s reporting does make a reasonable case that the wireless industry prevented the publication of the full findings of the WTR project, although a summary of its results was published in Medscape General Medicine in 2000, and the industry’s treatment of Carlo, complete with guards escorting him from campus and the like, was rather suspicious:
Whatever Carlo’s motives might have been, the documented fact is that he and Wheeler would eventually clash bitterly over the WTR’s findings, which Carlo presented to wireless-industry leaders on February 9, 1999. By that date, the WTR had commissioned more than 50 original studies and reviewed many more. Those studies raised “serious questions” about cell-phone safety, Carlo told a closed-door meeting of the CTIA’s board of directors, whose members included the CEOs or top officials of the industry’s 32 leading companies, including Apple, AT&T, and Motorola.
Carlo sent letters to each of the industry’s chieftains on October 7, 1999, reiterating that the WTR’s research had found the following: “The risk of rare neuro-epithelial tumors on the outside of the brain was more than doubled…in cell phone users”; there was an apparent “correlation between brain tumors occurring on the right side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side of the head”; and “the ability of radiation from a phone’s antenna to cause functional genetic damage [was] definitely positive….”
I also suspect that we’re reading only one side of the story, Carlo’s, spoon fed to Hertsgaard and Dowie. Indeed, the choice that the authors made to mention the lawsuit by David Reynard very early in their article tells you all you need to know about the level bias in the story. That was one of the more ludicrous lawsuits ever brought over cell phones and cancer. The reason? Reynard’s major claim was that his wife’s brain tumor looked like a cell phone antenna and that’s what convinced him that the cell phone must have caused her brain tumor. Don’t believe me? Read the transcript of an interview with Reynard on Larry King Live in 2000 and an article in the New York Times from 2011. Funny how that was left out.
The story left out a lot, actually. Again in fairness, it is true, as the Nation article points out, that Carlo got his start as an industry flack, although it was even worse than described, as he actually worked for the “Association for the Advancement of Sound Science”, which was funded by Philip Morris to undermine any research showing any adverse effects of secondhand tobacco smoke. Perhaps that explains his sparse publication record, even before he was hired by the wireless industry. I also wonder if mentioning that Carlo was formerly a tobacco company shill before being hired by the CTIA would have made him look so bad that his “conversion” to a gadfly tormenting the wireless industry would have been less convincing. Whatever the case, in fairness, one has to concede that the wireless industry’s original hire of Carlo does indeed have the stench of the tobacco industry about it. However, it’s not just that. It’s that there’s a lot more to the story of Carlo’s breakup with the wireless industry than Hertsgaard and Dowie report, and a lot of what is left out is information that would cast doubt on Carlo’s motives and competence.
For instance, Sourcewatch (no friend of industry, much less the wireless industry) has a very interesting entry on George L. Carlo, which does not paint him in a very good light at all. It cites an article from the May/June 2003 issue of Microwave News, reviewed the progress of the WTR project:
George Carlo’s Wireless Technology Research (WTR) had run a confidence game on behalf of the mobile phone companies… Carlo and the industry he represented never wanted to do any actual research… WTR’s $25-million research budget was by far the largest pot of money ever earmarked for RF research. It was squandered. The public is a loser because Carlo brought us no closer to understanding the health risks from cell phone radiation… For close to a decade, its members were denied the chance to do the promised research. Carlo’s strategy was clever and effective. By dangling a huge amount of money in front of the cash-starved RF community, Carlo guaranteed silent obedience. Anyone who dared complain risked being cut off from his millions. There was the added benefit that scientists were discouraged from helping lawyers who were thinking about suing cell phone companies. WTR’s bank account is now empty.
Carlo broke with the Cellular Telephone Industry Association after the money finally ran out (they eventually funded him to the tune of $27.5 million). His demand for further funding fell on deaf ears, and the dispute also led to an acrimonious exchange as a consequence of Carlo’s disputed divorce settlement when the CTIA refused to make WTR accounts available to his lawyers. They became implacable enemies.
At this late stage Carlo had a Damascian conversion, and overnight he became an enemy of the cellphone industry, charging that the CTIA was responsible for covering up some of the scientific findings uncovered by WTR funding, which he says had showed cellphones were dangerous. He never specified exactly what research funded by WTR and shown these dangers, but he was effective with the media and got his message across.
Further oddities included the following:
- Carlo teamed up with a product liability lawyer who wanted to sue the mobile phone companies on behalf of clients who had brain cancer. However, that project collapsed because the scientific links could never be convincingly demonstrated. It is tempting to liken Carlo to Andrew Wakefield here, who got his start studying vaccines and autism doing research for a trial lawyer.
- Carlo also wrote a book with Martin Schram that was noticeable more for what it avoided discussing than what it revealed. (Cellphones: invisible Hazard in the Wireless Age).
- Carlo joined forces with a “bio-shield” company {BioPro}] to promote a stick-on device to protect against “harmful cellphone radiation.” (These devices are worthless and do not work. They’re basically scams.) This arrangement also collapsed in acrimony. (This seems to be a recurring theme with Carlo, acrimonious breakups with former employers or partners.)
I found this all out with just a little bit of Googling, plus an article that’s still available on Archive.org about Carlo. One wonders if Hertsgaard and Dowie bothered to Google a bit about George Carlo and, if they did, why they only told one side of his story, the side that paints him as a brave whistleblowing warrior for scientific truth. I mean, seriously. The SourceWatch entry was incredibly easy to find.
Conspiracies everywhere!
I started with the disingenuous disclaimer above because it strains credibility beyond breaking to believe that the authors are not arguing that cell phone radiation is harmful and that it should be “left up to the scientists,” given that the scientific consensus is currently strongly in favor of the conclusion that there is no detectable increased risk of brain cancer or other adverse health outcomes associated with cell phone radiation, particularly given that the article states bluntly, “Billions of cell-phone users have been subjected to a public-health experiment without informed consent.” Let’s just put it this way. You don’t use language like that if you think that the product you’re discussing is benign. Indeed, it’s exactly the same sort of language antivaxers use when they describe vaccines. You could substitute the words “vaccinated children” for “cell phone users” and the sentence would not be out of place on any antivaccine website or blog.
More interesting, however, is how the authors consistently want it both ways. For example:
This Nation investigation reveals that the wireless industry not only made the same moral choices that the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries did; it also borrowed from the same public-relations playbook those industries pioneered. The playbook’s key insight is that an industry doesn’t have to win the scientific argument about safety; it only has to keep the argument going. That amounts to a win for the industry, because the apparent lack of certainty helps to reassure customers, even as it fends off government regulations and lawsuits that might pinch profits.
Central to keeping the scientific argument going is making it appear that not all scientists agree. Again like the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries, the wireless industry has “war gamed” science, as a Motorola internal memo in 1994 phrased it. War-gaming science involves playing offense as well as defense: funding studies friendly to the industry while attacking studies that raise questions; placing industry-friendly experts on advisory bodies like the World Health Organization; and seeking to discredit scientists whose views depart from the industry’s.
Funding friendly research has perhaps been the most important component of this strategy, because it conveys the impression that the scientific community truly is divided. Thus, when studies have linked wireless radiation to cancer or genetic damage—as Carlo’s WTR did in 1999; as the WHO’s Interphone study did in 2010; and as the US National Toxicology Program did in 2016—industry spokespeople can point out, accurately, that other studies disagree. “[T]he overall balance of the evidence” gives no cause for alarm, asserted Jack Rowley, research and sustainability director for the Groupe Special Mobile Association (GSMA), Europe’s wireless trade association, speaking to reporters about the WHO’s findings.
Notice the sleight of hand here. The implication behind the entire argument and claim made above is that the scientific community agrees that cell phone radiation causes adverse health effects and that only industry-sponsored studies find otherwise. This is a gross misrepresentation of the state of the science, when in reality the scientific consensus is on the side of the lack of a correlation between radio wave exposure due to cell phone use and cancer, making the scientists who believe that cell phone radiation is dangerous the ones who are in a clear minority. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this list of consensus statements from governments and expert panels regarding the heath effects and safe exposure levels of radiofrequency energy. There are a whole lot of statements like:
The balance of evidence to date suggests that exposures to RF radiation below NRPB and ICNIRP guidelines do not cause adverse health effects to the general population…
[and]
The balance of current research evidence suggests that exposures to the radiofrequency energy produced by cellphones do not cause health problems provided they comply with international guidelines. Reviews of all the research have not found clear, consistent evidence of any adverse effects.
There are many more such consensus statements.
The National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the CDC, and the FDA all conclude that there does not appear to be a risk of adverse health outcomes, including cancer, attributable to cell phone use.
It’s also rather telling which studies Hertsgaard and Dowie use as proof of the all-powerful telecom industry’s power. For instance, there was the Interphone study:
To be sure, the industry could not have been pleased with some of the Interphone study’s conclusions. The study found that the heaviest cell-phone users were 80 percent more likely to develop glioma. (The initial finding of 40 percent was increased to 80 to correct for selection bias.) The Interphone study also concluded that individuals who had owned a cell phone for 10 years or longer saw their risk of glioma increase by nearly 120 percent. However, the study did not find any increased risk for individuals who used their cell phones less frequently; nor was there evidence of any connection with meningioma.
When the Interphone conclusions were released in 2010, industry spokespeople blunted their impact by deploying what experts on lying call “creative truth-telling.” “Interphone’s conclusion of no overall increased risk of brain cancer is consistent with conclusions reached in an already large body of scientific research on this subject,” John Walls, the vice president for public affairs at the CTIA, told reporters. The wiggle word here is “overall”: Since some of the Interphone studies did not find increased brain-cancer rates, stipulating “overall” allowed Walls to ignore those that did.
The Interphone study before. It was actually a negative study and provided nothing even resembling compelling evidence that cell phones might be linked to cancer, the efforts of people like George Carlo and journalists like Hertsgaard and Dowie to paint it as a positive study notwithstanding. In this article, the Interphone study is portrayed as being a disappointment to the study scientists’ telecom paymasters for supposedly having a positive result, while real scientists explaining the nuance of the study and why it is not a positive study are evidence of the telecom industry “spinning” an “inconvenient result.” Elsewhere, supposedly a $4.7 million contribution to the World Health Organization led to the inclusion of industry representatives on the IARC, which only classified cell phone radiation as a “possible carcinogen.” Of course, as we’ve pointed out before, based on the existing evidence, even that’s a stretch, but Hertsgaard and Dowie represent it as the outcome of nefarious activity by the telecom industry, rather than science.
When Lorne Trottier last discussed the IARC classification of cell phone radiation as a possible carcinogen on SBM, he quoted Ken Foster, who pointed out, “Their conclusion is easy to misinterpret…Saying that something is a ‘possible carcinogen’ is a bit like saying that someone is a ‘possible shoplifter’ because he was in the store when the watch was stolen. The real question is what is the evidence that cell phones actually cause cancer, and the answer is — none that would persuade a health agency.”
He also noted that the IARC relied too heavily on some seemingly positive studies by Lennart Hardell’s group in Sweden. His group is viewed by most epidemiologists studying links between cell phone radiation and cancer as an outlier, and Trottier pointed out that his studies appear to rehash the same data set using highly flawed methodology. Guess which scientist Hertsgaard and Dowie like besides George Carlo? You guessed it. Lennart Hardell. Of course, they paint all the scientific criticism of Hardell’s studies as nothing more than the telecom industry striking back. Even more than that, they provide a link to a petition by Hardell that very much resembles (to me at least) the “dissent from Darwin” petition pointed to by creationists. Here’s a taste of the rhetoric:
The Nuremberg code (1949) applies to all experiments on humans, thus including the roll-out of 5G with new, higher RF-EMF exposure. All such experiments: “should be based on previous knowledge (e.g., an expectation derived from animal experiments) that justifies the experiment. No experiment should be conducted, where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.” (Nuremberg code pts 3-5). Already published scientific studies show that there is “a priori reason to believe” in real health hazards.
Again, this sounds very much like the sort of argument made by antivaxers, who regularly like to invoke the Nuremberg code in claiming that the current vaccination program is actually medical experimentation causing harm. Hint to Professor Hardell (and to Hertsgaard and Dowie): If you want to convince someone that you’re arguing good science, don’t sound like an antivaxer.
What, you might ask, is the goal of the nefarious machinations of the telecom industry as reported by Hartsgaard and Dowie? To prevent any resistance to the development of the “Internet of things” and products using 5G wireless, which, Hertsgaard and Dowie direly warn us, will “will require augmenting today’s 4G technology with 5G, thus massively increasing the general population’s exposure to radiation.” Of course.
The narrative
The most striking thing about this Nation article was, as far as I’m concerned, the disingenuousness of it all. The authors argue with a straight face that they are not taking a position one way or the other regarding whether cell phone radiation causes cancer or other health problems and that they believe that “scientists should decide” if cell phone radiation is dangerous. Yet, tellingly, they don’t quote a single scientist of any standing on the issue and appear to have constructed their story largely around the narrative promoted over nearly two decades by George Carlo, hardly a reliable source and someone who appears to me to be a science denialist who switched sides after a falling out with his last industry paymasters that occurred when the money ran out. Carlo’s narrative is presented as fact, with no mention of the various other troublesome aspects of his history, such as his history of having hawked bogus products to “protect” against cell phone radiation. Such facts would, of course, have painted Carlo in a less flattering picture and diluted the intended message of the story. It’s also ancient history at this point. There’s been a lot of science done since then, and it doesn’t support the fear mongering.
Of course, any attempt by corporate interests to cover up inconvenient science would be rather pointless if there weren’t actual evidence of harm. After all, if tobacco weren’t highly carcinogenic, there would have been no point in tobacco companies going to such lengths to cover up the emerging science supporting links between tobacco and cancer and various diseases. Similarly, framing an article in a way that compares the tactics of telecom companies with respect to the biology of cell phone radiation is kind of pointless if that radiation doesn’t cause harm. So, their claims that they take no position on whether cell phone radiation causes health problems notwithstanding, Hertsgaard and Dowie do their damnedest, if not to prove such a link, to cite all sorts of studies that they consider suggestive of such a link, ignoring biological plausibility, and ignoring the studies making up the scientific consensus that cell phone radiation hasn’t been linked with cancer or health problems. Basically, they cherry pick. For instance, they cite a study in plants (Vicia faba seedlings) purporting to show that radiofrequency energy can interfere with DNA replication as though it has any relevance to humans. They misrepresent the Interphone study as an actual positive study. The list goes on. They also represent the view of someone like George Carlo as the scientific consensus, with those arguing that existing scientific evidence shows no detectable health effects from cell phone radiation as industry shills. It’s really that blatant.
Of course, the story had to be this way once the authors decided that the narrative was going to be that telecom companies are like tobacco companies. Even if the telecom industry did indeed try to prevent studies examining the health effects of cell phone radiation or to co-opt science through the WTR project, there wouldn’t be nearly as much reason for outrage if the actual science doesn’t show any harm, and this story is clearly meant to outrage readers. In the end, all I can say is this: For people who claim to be agnostic about whether cell phone radiation causes cancer and other bad things, Hertsgaard and Dowie sure have a strange way of showing it. This was irresponsible journalism at its most irresponsible.
68 replies on “Conspiratorial fear mongering about cell phones and cancer, courtesy of The Nation”
Best and most appropriate misspelling ever.
Now fixed.
Oh noes.
Spoiled our fun.
As you say there is no valid connection between cell phones ( and other rf emitting equipment of low wattage), cell phones have caused many deaths and injuries from being used in the wrong places and times, such as when you are driving.
If the article had been written about the hazards of improper use of cell phones, it would have been a good public service piece but wouldn’t have been good click bait.
If you want rf emitting equipment to harm you, stand in front of a high power radar unit.
I agree, they wasted a good way (and good money on the study too) to point out the actual dangers related to cell phones and instead chose to prey upon the inability of the public at large to assess the real health risks for a shot at a sexy headline “phones cause cancer!!!!!111!!!”
My mom has already asked me about this because she saw it somewhere on facebook, un-ironically she called from her cell phone…
The position of The Nation seems to be that “large corporation = obvious evil in everything they say and do.” And often, this is correct. However, that’s no excuse for pretending there’s a health risk to people where there isn’t one.
Agreed: large corporations are often ( mostly?) rather horrendous in a multiplicity of ways but they don’t necessarily cause cancer.
Amongst the idiots I survey, everything they don’t sell causes cancer.
Indeed. This sort of crap makes it hard to address the real problems, because it gets lost amongst the noise.
If Monsanto were areal person, I would be tempted to give them a swift kick between the legs right now. Nothing to do with them selling GMOs, but their rubbish approach to the management of dicamba.
I kind of wish cell phones did cause cancer to organs in close proximity to them when they are in use. In the cases i can think of, it involves cancer of the genitals as students seem to like to have the phone down between their legs in lectures. I really would like to see one of these studies explain how non-ionizing radiation penetrates the skin.
I also agree with Julian, the typo is awesome.
Non ionizing radiation absolutely penetrates the skin. RF at the frequencies concerned passes mostly through you. Less so as frequency goes up. It just doesn’t break chemical bonds while it’s passing through you.
You are probably confusing it with Alpha particles, which are stopped by your skin.
Sorry for pedantry, but have heard this misconception before.
Microwave-band RF (what cell phones and WiFi use) is not good at passing through you (though yes, it definitely penetrates the skin).
That’s why “holding the phone wrong”, with your hand over the antenna, ruins reception – your body [mostly the water in it, IIRC] is absorbing the signal pretty well.
“Microwave-band RF (what cell phones and WiFi use)…”
Not really. All mobile phone tech, so far, is below 2.5 GHz so it’s technically UHF, not microwave. But there is 5 GHz Wi-Fi, which is microwave. The dividing lines are admittedly arbitrary. 5G (someday) will use millimeter wavelengths up to almost 100 GHz for high speed data. That’ll be interesting since for much of this spectrum atmospheric attenuation is high due to absorption by water vapour.
“…is not good at passing through you (though yes, it definitely penetrates the skin).”
Not much is absorbed, but that is very frequency dependent in this range. Depending on body depth much of it transits animal tissue, and much of it reflects. In a previous life I did a variety of quantitative measurements of transmission and reflection of ~10 GHz energy by small animals and humans. Reflection occurs at a variety of depths so you get surface reflection and you can directly measure heart beats. It was interesting work. There are obvious military applications, however my involvement was purely commercial.
“That’s why “holding the phone wrong”, with your hand over the antenna, ruins reception – your body [mostly the water in it, IIRC] is absorbing the signal pretty well.”
Misleading. There is no EM at this distance, just E and H fields since we’re in the near field of the antenna. Hands absorb little of this but sure do have a mutual impedance with the antenna resulting in the transmitter driving a non-optimal impedance. Engineers have gotten quite good at reducing the impact of hands and heads, and the mass of metal the antenna lies next to within the phone itself.
@Another Brian, Sigivald, rs
I appreciate the clarification about ionizing radiation vs alpha particles. It doesn’t help that I was doing some reading on radar imaging (waves ~1mm-5cm) and how water absorbs and refracts it nicely.
Must not post before first cup of caffeine is ingested.
Scientific American has a recent article on this too: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-studies-link-cell-phone-radiation-with-cancer/
Not very convincing.
Rats, they’ve stopped making these.
Once you know Carlo’s full back story, his being escorted out of the CTIA’s offices sounds a bit Pythonesque: “The people responsible for sacking the people responsible for the sackings, have been sacked.” IANAL, but not disclosing that back story sounds a lot like reckless disregard to me.
The guy sounds like a garden variety grifter to me. He’ll take a paycheck from whoever is willing to pay him (Big Tobacco, CTIA, trial lawyers, or purchasers of his worthless products), and change sides if he thinks the financial situation warrants it. Definitely not a reliable source.
Thank goodness I use the left side.
So only left-handed people get brain cancer from cell phones? (I’m assuming that most people hold the phone in their non-dominate hand in order to have their dominate hand free for writing, driving or whatever.)
I’m mostly left-handed: writing and batting, for example, but I bowl right-handed. For some reason, it used to irritate my dad when I would switch my utensils from hand to hand. And his mother tried to make me right-handed for a while. If I have to write, I just use a headset and put the phone down.
It’s very true that cellphone radiation is unlikely to cause cancer. One little thought I might add:
I can think of one way in which radiowaves might have the energy to cause the damage necessary to result in cancer. Multiphoton absorption. This is a process where multiple low energy photons line up in just such a way that they can cause a state transition at an energy equal to the summation energy of those lower energy photons. Now, while this process exists, the caveat is that it requires a high intensity of photons to drive it; the larger the number of photons needed for a single event, the higher the impinging light intensity needed to produce even one event. As such, for a low power output device like a cellphone, it’s pretty unlikely to have a summation event that goes from radiowave energies to ultraviolet energies… probably very much in the noise of competing explanations for a cancer causing event. Two and three photon microscopy are possible using lasers, but radiowaves to ultraviolet from a cellphone? Here’s the likelihood: radiowave/microwave energy ~1 ueV (1×10^-6 eV), UV energy ~10 eV. A 1,000,000 photon absorption event? Pretty unlikely.
What is highly likely however, is that microwave radiation at levels emitted by cell phones is sufficient to cause oxidative stress which then impairs the ever ongoing DNA repair process of the human body. This in turn leads to tumours. It’s an indirect causation, but a causation nonetheless. The author of this article and the decidedly unscientific commenters would be well advised to review the latest results of the NTP study and the recommendations of the expert peer review panel who now believe that there is strong evidence of a link between EMR and cancer.
Both GSM and CDMA signals led to the development of a rare tumour in the hearts of rats, malignant schwannoma. That is scientific fact, so put away your woo woos and your vaccination non-sequiturs and understand that cell phones cause cancer. You’d be well advised to lower exposure to them, wi-fi, “smart” meters, and all the other devices that we’re exposed to now in daily life.
So they found a low incidence of tumors in male rats but not female rats?
However a large study based on actual cell phone usage in humans found no link between the exposure and cancer rate.
https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6387
So your suspected causation process apparently doesn’t make much difference in real life.
Stop at that first sentence; that’s a physically unjustified assertion that is not backed up by anything but your willingness to put the words “microwave” and “oxidative stress” in the same sentence. Knowing something about microwaves, I can tell you that the energy deposition has to be as heat and is much too low to cause chemistry directly. Since it is heat, this begs a relevant scale… which you’ve completely ignored. Cellphones emit between 0.6 and 3 Watts of power, or estimating generously, 20 watts/m^2 intensity (probably way high). How about we compare that to the 1.3 kilowatts/m^2 of power incident on you from ambient sunlight? If you’re freaked out by cellphones, you’d better be positively catatonic about going out in the sun because the numbers say that the sun is something like 25 times more capable of inducing the sort of stress you’re talking about based upon the most basic approximation… and the sun doesn’t shut off to conserve battery power. Keep in mind, I haven’t even introduced anything like absorption efficiency, which is really going to increase the difference. My recommendation to you: be very afraid, all sorts of radiationz about to gobble you up.
“GSM and CDMA signals”
Heh! You think the method of modulating the RF carrier is pertinent? What about TDMA, OFDM and all the rest? Yet all digital modulation techniques allowed for a significant power reduction in cell phone transmitters (see Foolish Physicist’s comment) compared to their analog antecedents such as AMPS. There must have been a real plague of brain cancers back in the 90s compared to now.
For some reason I can’t reply to replies, so I’ll reply to myself and address each reply below in turn:
squirrelelite:
If you’re going to research this topic, you’re going to have do more than bring up a single study and expect to be able to get the whole story, which applies to anything really, but especially to non-thermal RF radiation effects because it so complicated a topic. Differences between males and females is not unexpected due to vast hormonal differences and this is far from unusual in any field of medical study.
Also, I’m quite sure that you’re unaware of the now proven “window effect” with health effects from microwave radiation which violates the normal and always expected dose response curve from other toxins. A higher energy density exposure will often give fewer and sometimes no effects compared to a lower energy density exposure. If this is unknown to the researchers, it can render a study useless by design and is likely a major reason why there are so many inconclusive study results. A proposed hypothesis for this is that the novelty of modulated microwaves to human physiology often renders it an unrecognisable threat, or a threat that does not induce an immune response, so it takes a higher level to induce a response which then in turn allows the immune response to mount an effective counter measure and implement protective actions.
The Danish Cohort Study that you quote has been heavily criticised for its many flaws so cannot be relied upon to prove anything and this link discusses that in detail:
http://microwavenews.com/DanishCohort.html
foolish physicist:
You’re certainly living up to your name, but enough with the ad hominem, I have plenty to prove you wrong without resorting to that. My assertions are not unjustified and if you spent even a minute researching the available science you would have to agree. Why is it that physicists are some of the worst offenders when it comes to claiming something is impossible without actually investigating the available science that proves them completely wrong? I suppose it’s because physics is a precise science which allows the separation and simplification of problems into small portions that can have accurate models constructed which are faithful representations of reality. This results in a tendency to inappropriately over-simplify problems down to an incorrect model that no longer meaningfully represents reality.
You say “I can tell you that the energy deposition has to be as heat.” Yes you can tell me, but it doesn’t make it true. How do you think cell phones communicate with each other? Through heat? Why do you doubt that the human body, an electro-chemical machine that operates on thresholds of tens of millivolts, could be influenced by the modulation on a microwave carrier that is ideally suited to penetrate the epidermis and influence cell physiology? Unfortunately the interaction of the human body and microwave radiation is extremely complicated and the more we learn the more we realize that we have much more to learn. Here’s a small sampling of studies and reviews showing oxidative stress from non-thermal levels of microwave radiation:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23720885
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/15368378.2016.1144063?src=recsys
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4503846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26511840
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161813X15300097
Your straw man comparison with energy from the Sun is not very convincing. Since a 22 calibre bullet has about the same energy as a few seconds run time on a 100W light bulb, are you telling me that it’s no more lethal than a light bulb? I don’t know what physics you allow to guide your beliefs, but it’s not what I learned at university.
rs:
You say: “Heh! You think the method of modulating the RF carrier is pertinent?” No, I don’t think the modulation type is pertinent. It’s scientifically proven. A few minutes on your favourite search engine will enlighten you. This has been known since microwave radiation military experiments in the 60s and 70s, long before cell phones were even envisioned. A pure carrier is far less harmful than any type of modulation, and the modulation type is highly significant with respect to magnitude of health effects. This is yet another complicating factor in this extremely complicated topic that causes reproducibility and comparison of studies to be problematic. Also certain frequency ranges within the microwave spectrum have vastly different effects. Typically, the lower the carrier frequency, the higher the penetrability.
1/2 a short alphabetic sequence: “A pure carrier is far less harmful than any type of modulation, and the modulation type is highly significant with respect to magnitude of health effects.”
Citation definitely needed. Provide the best you’ve got and I may have a look. It’s your absurd claim so you back it up with credible science.
This is yet another complicating factor in this extremely complicated topic that causes reproducibility and comparison of studies to be problematic.
Maybe come back when you do have reproducible, comparable studies.
Since I don’t really give a damn what you think of a biophysicist arguing biophysics, I’ll deal with the claims.
Cellphones operate by a totally different physics. In these devices, a monolithic conductor contains electrons in conduction band states. Passing electric fields can cause them to move because these states have very small energies between them, meaning that radiowaves can stir them up… they can go into coherent motion, called an electric current. In the “electro-chemical machine,” as you call it, all the electric charges are on massive ions that are sequestered into chemical concentration gradients by physical partitions; they are induced to move by purely mechanical means when protein channels snap open to allow them to pass… they do not subsist in states that can absorb electrical fields as anything but heat –electrical field enticement sets them into incoherent motion…heat! If you don’t get the difference, I would suggest bothering to take classes on electromagnetism and neural anatomy since you don’t really seem to know anything deep about either.
That’s called “God in the Gaps” by the way.
What, are you working at absolute zero? Do have any idea what “thermal” versus “non-thermal” is?
Now, let’s take a look at your little citation Gish Gallop
Citation #1: ” The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of 900 MHz MW radiation exposure on cognitive function and oxidative stress in blood of Fischer rats.” …yup, that’s thermal, see Narad’s comment about 900 MHz radiation below.
Citation #2: They say nothing about the absorption route, but everything they’re talking about sure looks like a heat shock reaction too. Formation of radicals is a heat shock effect.
Citation #3: Again, no mention of the absorption route and no measure of the energy absorption. The attentions still look like heat shock.
Citation #4: Not a horrible paper, but they sure are interested in apparent frequency dependence and say little about power measurements even though they seem to give a means of measuring dose. I’ve never done a comet assay, so I can’t note whether they did it well or not. They even claim that the effects they find are due to exposure that is not coincident with a measured change in temperature and made an interesting claim about DNA being conductive enough through the pi-stacks in the bases to absorb microwaves by the conduction route used with cellphone receivers. On the other hand, I would note that they wrote “On the other hand contradictory reports have also been found on microwave radiation induced genotoxic effects and several questions still remain unanswered”. This looks like a frontier result to me that would need to be reproduced by a different lab. Further, I would point out that they made zero measures of the survival of the rats: did it change their life expectancies? We deal with environmental DNA damage at some level all the time and it doesn’t necessarily effect your quality of life. And it doesn’t change a part of my initial point, is this effect in the noise of what you do to your own liver every time you chug a bottle of beer or get sunburned laying on the beach… why would you fixate on this and not look at the things that really will kill you?
Citation #5: Why the hell did you give me the same paper twice? Did you think I wouldn’t notice. Gish gallop anyone?
I made no such claim. I claimed that a large heat source is more likely to cause heat shock associated damage than a small source. Claiming I said otherwise is a willful misinterpretation of my words, bordering again on the ad hominem you started with. All I’ve claimed is that you don’t really know what you’re talking about… I’m doubting the quality of your personage, but I haven’t attacked that.
I have heard about DNA conduction. I even went and looked at the citation in the paper you actually cared about and checked to see what was being claimed about DNA electron conduction: this paper. I would point out that the electrons conducted in DNA in that experiment were very specifically injected from an intercalated donor molecule and entered a conduction state along the stacked pi-bonds of the DNA. There are no conduction band electrons naturally present in DNA, or DNA would not have negative birefringence. The pi-stacks in DNA can act as a medium to conduct exogenous, injected, electrons, but those electrons need to come from somewhere. Such electrons could absorb microwaves in principle, but they would need to be introduced first. I’ll even grant that many microwaves absorbed by such a conduction mode could do chemistry by upconversion. Still, that is the one great hole in citation #4… all they say is that DNA can be conductive and suppose that it would respond to RF without any citation to truly corroborate their claim (the citation they used doesn’t say that), but they definitely aren’t showing that DNA is conductive under the conditions of their testing, or that direct DNA microwave absorption is the route of what they think they’re looking at. Absorption could easily be thermal changes in the noise of their instruments rather than any actual conduction effects. Do you really think that a rectal thermometer is a good whole body temperature measure for a rat when the energy being injected would need a much finer temperature range to track? It’s like 3 W/kg for 12 hours to increase temperature by a degree or two! It can still easily be thermal on the appropriate scales.
Since you are clearly a believer, let me ask you something: in the citations you’re cherry picking, have you once gone to look at available secondary citations that make the opposing claims? Citation #4 offered several, did you bother to look at them? Or did you just mine Pubmed for abstract titles you had no intention to read that deeply to begin with?
“You’d be well advised to lower exposure to them, wi-fi, “smart” meters, and all the other devices that we’re exposed to now in daily life.”
So you (h), of course, do not own a cell phone and only connect to the internet via some kind of cable?
Here’s the thing: rats get cancer if you look at them funny. That’s just what they do. So why are only male rats (and not male mice) getting these two forms of cancer? Why not other cancers? Why not the female rats or female mice? Yes, hormones matter, but they don’t make that much difference.
And given the super-unrealistically high doses these animals were subject to, and rat’s proclivity to cancer, why only two forms of cancer? Why not everything under the sun?
To me it sounds like there were some methodological issues that are confounding the results.
(Also, who holds a phone up to their head these days? If cell phones caused cancer we should see a huge uptick in cancer in the hands, or pocket areas, right?)
Some further thoughts for h.
I am merely a commenter, not a researcher, but I have read several extensive discussions of cell phone-cancer risk. I found this one to be particularly informative.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-cell-phones-a-possible-carcinogen-an-update-on-the-iarc-report/
There are newer blogs at the same source, including friends of this blog, but Trottier gives a particularly detailed discussion of the background of the IARC decision and the various studies that were considered including those by the Hardell group and the Interphone study, as well as the Danish study I referenced.
I merely noted the gender difference because it is highly unusual for gender to be completely protective against cancer and that is certainly not true for brain cancers in the general population.
I wasn’t aware of the “window effect” and I didn’t see it discussed in your Microwave News link, so a citation showing an actual associated risk is much needed. It reminds me of the speculative arguments about the effect of low doses of ionizing radiation during the ’60s and ’70s with regard to nuclear power plants. It concerned how to estimate death and other effects for a large population at low doses (for which we did not have good incidence data) based on results in much smaller populations exposed at higher doses (for which we unfortunately did have data).
It’s difficult enough to sort out the risk of a long term slow developing effect like brain cancer as a result of a slow, more or less steady, accumulation of dose from available data. And if higher cell phone use protects against cancer, what are you really worried about?
I also read your Microwave News article. There is very little discussion of the technical pro’s and con’s of the various studies. I found Trottier much more informative in that regard. It does let Robert Haan of the IARC and Lennart Hardell and Elisabeth Cardis, who also participated in the IARC committee, justify their decision. Then it switches to complaining about an ongoing prospective cohort study, the COSMOS project (which has a broken link), being a source of further bias??? Since Microwave News seems to regard bias as a synonym for data that doesn’t show the results we like, it’s not surprising that Ahlbom and Feychting declined further discussions with them.
More importantly, they did not explain why the expected risk from Hardell’s research hasn’t shown up in subsequent cancer incidence in Sweden where he did his research.
Nor does it explain why brain cancer incidence has remained flat or even declined slightly in the U.S. as recently as 2014, despite the explosive growth of cell phone use in the last 10-15 years.
https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/brain.html
So, when you say
I think your use of adjectives suggests that you might be inclined to motivated reasoning.
Just to be clear, “h,” you are now claiming to have an undergraduate degree in physics?
Hormesis on line 2.
@Narad,
I was thinking of that effect but forgot the word.
A few years ago one of the conservative flacks (Ann Coulter?) made a dumb statement about normal background radiation being beneficial and I was trying to figure out how to test that. It would probably take raising animals in a super low radiation environment like a salt mine to get a comparison sample.
The interesting thing about replying to commenters like h is that I sometimes learn something myself. In this case, I thought the Danish study had tracked actual cell phone usage, but apparently they just counted years of usage. But I may have overlooked that part.
They actually did it (PDF). What’s left out of these slides is the reason (PDF, slide 4) for frequency selection:
“Based on high relative absorption in tail of rats at 1900 MHz and mice at 900 MHz, frequencies selected for NTP studies were 900 MHz for rats and 1900 MHz for mice.”
Maybe it was the SWR.
And the doses they’re talking about are crazy high: 3 or 6 W/kg. Cellphones broadcast a max of 3 W in all directions. Actual absorbed dose would be way lower. You would have to have a cellphone surgically implanted in your leg, set to broadcast constantly at max power for weeks.
Perhaps I misunderstood, but all the microwave exposed cohorts survived better than the unexposed controls, pretty much across the board. Doesn’t that mean that microwave exposure will prolong your life?
Well, 900 and 1900 MHz, but they state that quite plainly in slide 26. Perhaps there’s an explanation for this somewhere else, but I can’t hunt for it right at the moment.
foolish physicist:
Again, your assertions have no basis in fact. The lowest energy density used in the experiment was below the allowable limits by the FCC and some cell phones have been tested at higher than this figure. Do you really think that holding a cell phone directly on your ear won’t expose you to this maximum and more when the manufacturers themselves warn in the fine print to maintain a 5/8″ or larger distance from any body part to remain within FCC guidelines? If microwave exposure does prolong life, but riddled with tumours, is that a good thing?
Mirrors are your friends, “h.”
h, you have little to no idea what you’re talking about. Sad that people can’t be told such.
Moreover, h, did you stop and think about how stupid this sounds before you wrote it:
The reason people care about cancer at all is because it decreases life expectancy. If you had a non-cosmetic tumor that did not adversely effect your survival, would it matter medically? In the reality of most people, “riddled with tumors” means either “metastatic cancer” or “heightened risk of metastatic cancer” which equates directly to abbreviated life. I think it’s probably vanishingly rare where anyone has ever had to seriously ask the question you posed.
The Nation has also engaged in disingenuous fearmongering about GMO crops. The gross inaccuracies and biases in this article are something to behold:
https://www.thenation.com/article/twenty-six-countries-ban-gmos-why-wont-us/
Example- the article includes golden rice (vitamin A-enhanced to prevent the scourge of vit. A deficiency-related blindness and death in the Third World) in its corporate conspiracy farmers-made-slaves-to-Big Biotech narrative, forgetting to mention that golden rice is being developed by a nonprofit organization, and provided to poorer farmers who can use and save seed as they wish without paying royalties.
Sometimes the progressive fixation on Corporate Evil is destructive as well as wrong.
So, did the authors of the Nation article throw away their cell phones and have cell phones banned from their entire company? No? So maybe even they realize that this whole thing is ridiculous?
So I suppose that NaturalNews and prn.fm can say that they scooped evil, leftist The Nation by years since they’ve been reporting the cancer-cell phone “connection” for years** ( see cell phones x either crappy outlet).
I would venture that both these health-conscious entrepreneurs only use landlines or some other form of arcane technology to communicate
.
**Null used to sell phone radiation shields.
Even more than that, they provide a link to a petition by Hardell that very much resembles (to me at least) the “dissent from Darwin” petition pointed to by creationists. Here’s a taste of the rhetoric:
The Hardell petition is being handed from one paranoid-style website to another like a lollipop at a pox party at the moment. Its presence at any location is a flag that there will New World Order conspiracies and Rothschilds antisemitism somewhere not far away. For instance:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/scientists-and-doctors-warn-of-potential-serious-health-impacts-of-fifth-generation-5g-wireless-technology/5609503
Some self-proclaimed tech expert received a copy and swallowed it holus-bolus, regurging it as a piece of piffle that is so incompetent that only NZ news media seem to have syndicated it: https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/102545714/ministry-wrong-to-think-three-5g-networks-would-be-better
So what’s the possibility of someone marketing colloidal silver as shielding from the ‘harmful effects of mobile phones’? Be your own Faraday cage!
Not sure where to post this ( well, it’s about entrenched woo so….)
On today’s Gary Null Show ( see prn.fm/ shows/ garynullshow/ today) about 30 minutes in- 38 minutes
It seems that the miserable, posturing old woo-meister and his sycophantic enabler, Richard Gale, discuss a whistleblower who exposed how certain groups of editors unfairly dominate wikip— and make it impossible to change any “misleading information” on wiki articles. This is so undemocratic says the woo-doer.
These groups consist of ((shudder)) SCEPTICS: followers of Dawkins, Randi and SBM who scoff on natural medicine and healthy living. Hint: someone who writes about Deepak Chopra. They enlist unemployed people and are funded by Pharma.
On Thursday, ALL will be revealed. They will NAME NAMES. There is a huge article uncovering everything.
Be very afraid, brothers and sisters. They on to us.
“They enlist unemployed people and are funded by Pharma.”
Well, since we’re funded by Pharma we can’t be unemployed, now can we?
Ooops, spilled the beans again. 🙁
*found a swell website that tells how the newly missing/dead CDC employee was about to tell all about the deadly flu vaccine, but Pharma got him. Look for the “rabbit hole” section.
Big Pharma blocked the URL, but here goes again: http://awarenessact.com
G. d’Ambrosio, R. Massa, M. R. Scarfl, and O. Zeni, “Cytogenetic damage in human lymphocytes following GMSK phase modulated microwave exposure,” Bioelectromagnetics, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 7–13, 2002. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
K. Buchner and H. Eger, “Changes of clinically important neurotransmitters under the influence of modulated RF fields—a long-term study under real-life conditions,” Umwelt-Medizin-Gesellschaft, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 44–57, 2011. View at Google Scholar
Smut Clyde: maybe come back when you’ve read them. There are thousands of peer-reviewed studies showing harm from non-thermal microwave radiation.
The fact that the copypasta includes “View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus” strongly suggests that you yourself have not. Well, that and not having anything but copypasta.
I’m mildly amused that Buchner & Eger is cited in Bioelectromagnetic and Subtle Energy Medicine (2d ed!), which appears to be a treasure trove. Where did this translation come from and get published, anyway?
No it doesn’t. I left that in for your convenience. I’ve probably read more RF studies than you’ve read of anything at all, but keep up the non-sequiturs, it only weakens your argument.
“Lab4more” also appears to be trying to outdo Doctor’s Data. I wish I had more time for this. Great FAQ entry:
Um, do you think these words do something? Do you know what a DOI is?
This is hilarious: there are two matches, both from Hindawi. The first one looks to be spectacular.
^ Rats, it’s only the second one. This is the source of the cut-and-paste job. Somehow, I think it was for someone else’s “convenience.”
Looks to be a very promising year (PDF) coming up though. Who would have thought that it was possible to detoxify from RF?
Bioelectromagnetic and Subtle Energy Medicine (2d ed!)
It has a chapter from Pollack, about his aqueous-science Waterbender stuff. And a couple from Rollin McCrory, whom you will remember from the HeartMath Institute grift.
There are thousands of peer-reviewed studies showing harm from non-thermal microwave radiation.
Dude, you’re the one saying that when studies give negative results, or don’t replicate, it’s because the wrong
incantationsmodulation magic properties were used.Just by the by, I actually have one of these.
Hell, given that I’m bone-tired and the subject is more or less radio, I’ll also note that an early scene in Three Days of the Condor features a glorious display of Racal RA-117’s. “Shack warmers,” as they’re sometimes referred to.
Continued from above…
Be VERY AFRAID, Sceptical ( and Dangerous) Ones!!!!!!
I listened to Null’s show ( prn.fm/ shows. garynullshow today) 41 minutes in.- end
He had Rome Viharo, who has a blog, Wikipedia, We have a Problem which details how alt med and paranormal preachers are reviled and misrepresented by Wikip—. He tried to help Deepak and Sheldrake fix their bios but was doxed, blocked. rationalwiki’d and tossed. He just wants to build consensus and end battles.
HOWEVER Sceptics and Scientific Atheists DOMINATE Wikip–!
Null notes that his lawyers ( who came armed with documents!) could not ever change anything on his wiki page because of ((shudder)) Dr Barrett! Thus , although he has a large audience, Wikip– fux him with newbies who might otherwise discover his genius and power.( and buy stuff)
Lawyers couldn’t change ANYTHING!
I know that he sued Wikip– for 100 million USD ( it used to be on Quackwatch/ Credential watch IIRC) but lost.
They can’t change that BIO! **
Null’s Richard Gale will continue tomorrow.
He had a recent article about “Medical McCarthyism” – this may be the same.
When I reported on RI that Dr DHG was named, the reference was fixed. Similar when the Head Woo read the article aloud- he skipped that name. They are afraid of Orac. I presume. They should be.
** I love it!
Note to minions:
UNFORTUNATELY…
It seems that the hoary old woo-meister is putting off his expose** of Sceptics, Orac & Co. His cohort, Richard Gale***, is recruiting
insiders to tell the Truth – all will be revealed in the coming weeks re wikip— and other social media
We rulz the WikiP.. because we bad**
**,actually because we can show data, facts, documents and other non-confabulatory modes of self-congratulation.
*** there is an un-tampered copy of Gale’s ( long title ) “Medical MacCarthyism” or suchlike at Green Med Info amongst other internet woo sinkholes, naming Dr DG, RI, SBM etc.
I’m on the fence of what to believe when it comes to cell phones. I’ve read conflicting articles. When I go to bed, I turn off my phone and it’s not near my bed. Better safe than sorry, right? Or just paranoia? lol.. Either way, I sleep better when I’m not always reaching out for the phone to check the weather, a text, a sports score, or whatever pops into my head, when I should be sleeping…
“Tonight on IRRATIONAL SCARE PROGRAM…”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3109815261/
I only just discovered that Catherine Frompovich is looking for a new scam and has moved on from vaccines to cellphone agitation. Whatevs.