Bioelectromagnetics

[MRC_Hans]

I thought one could only get jet lag travelling from west to east. Does that mean that Roger travelled from Turkey to England via China and the US? Or maybe the earth spins the opposite way just for Roger - wouldn't surprise me!

Well, it is all of two timezones. Maybe Roger jetlags easily .

Hans

 

[Pragmatist]

Hans said:

"What we're disputing is YOUR claim that it can all be conveniently explained away by an external electric field".

OK That is what I evidently need to prove to your satisfaction, and in terms of normal science, without inventing any new physics.

Well, that would certainly be a novelty!

So what would constitute proof in your eyes? Epi studies can only show association, not causation. In any case there are few electric field epi studies around. Animal studies cannot be extrapolated to humans or at least the non primate studies are likely to raise objections on grounds of shape, metabolic processes, circadian rhythm differences etc. In vitro studies on human cells exposed to EMF are prone to large confounding influences simply because cells are so small.

But....

If we find a large number of persistent studies showing an epi association, AND if we also have a large body of evidence that animals are adversely or beneficially affected in predictable ways, AND if the in vitro evidence is consistent and plentiful, AND if studies of human subjects in laboratories also report consistent effects, AND if there are plausible biologicval mechanisms to explain the effects...

...then in the paraphrased words of Bradford Hill, we can legitimately and reasonably assume a causal relationship.

Would you agree with that?

Yes and no, that's a lot of "if's".

Firstly, epi studies can only show an APPARENT association. An epi study alone cannot even prove association. For example, if lots of people in proximity to power lines got cancer, there would be an APPARENT association, not a definite one. Because, as has been pointed out elsewhere, power line insulators used to contain PCB's, which occasionally leaked, and which could possibly cause cancer. And as someone else said, power line routes were often sprayed with defoliant to prevent trees growing up into the lines. And that defoliant may cause cancer. Also heavy power lines often tend to run between major industrial areas, so proximity to lines often equates to proximity to industrial areas which may have increased carcinogenic emissions. And some power lines run parallel to major roads, which have cars belching out possibly carcinogenic exhaust fumes. And the people who live in the (poorer) houses under the power lines are more likely to be the factory workers etc., who are more generally exposed to pollutants at work....and so on. So unless you can definitively eliminate ALL other reasonable contributing factors you can't say there is a definite association between the fields from the lines and the cancers. Even your friend Denis Henshaw thinks that the causitive agent is pollutants pulled in by the power line fields. Which although it implicates the fields, it only does so as a co-factor, not as a prime agent.

So that rules out the epi studies for a start.

As for animals affected in predictable ways, you would need to show CONSISTENT, REPRODUCIBLE and predictable ways. For a very large number of cases. Most studies are not replicated as I have already mentioned. Same for other studies.

Finally plausible biological mechanisms. You need BOTH plausible biological AND physical mechanisms, AND proof that the actual effect occurs in practice under real conditions.

You haven't even come remotely close to ANY of these criteria!

 

[cogreslab]

Well, it is all of two timezones. Maybe Roger jetlags easily

It takes about nine hours travelling to get to Wales from Istanbul, including three hours of my driving. Perhaps just fatigue?! Both hypotheses (I ignore the hangover possibility) are unsupported speculations.

 

[cogreslab]

Prag said:

As for animals affected in predictable ways, you would need to show CONSISTENT, REPRODUCIBLE and predictable ways. For a very large number of cases. Most studies are not replicated as I have already mentioned. Same for other studies.

OK Let's start there. I have a published meta-analysis of forty experiments from six different laboratiories all telling the same story. Any good?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Well, it is all of two timezones. Maybe Roger jetlags easily

It takes about nine hours travelling to get to Wales from Istanbul, including three hours of my driving. Perhaps just fatigue?! Both hypotheses (I ignore the hangover possibility) are unsupported speculations.

Yeah, I know the feeling. You are simply waiting for your soul to catch up.

Hans

 

[Pragmatist]

Prag said:

As for animals affected in predictable ways, you would need to show CONSISTENT, REPRODUCIBLE and predictable ways. For a very large number of cases. Most studies are not replicated as I have already mentioned. Same for other studies.

OK Let's start there. I have a published meta-analysis of forty experiments from six different laboratiories all telling the same story. Any good?

No idea until I see it. I'm not very interested in epi studies or meta analyses, but maybe others on here will be, so just post it and let's see.

And what do you think the "story" is? Let's get it quite clear what you think you are trying to prove.

 

[cogreslab]

The paper I had in mind was

MORRIS K.T. KIMBALL R. L. et al
Statistical Approach to combining results of similar experiments with application to the hematological effects of extremely low frequency electric field exposures
BEMS J 10(1): 23-34 1989

BEMS Journal is not an easy one to get hold of (I tried persuading the RSM to subscribe for years without success) so I will set out the findings in some detail but I have urgent things tonight in advance of going to the BEMS meeting in Washington on Thursday.

Will try to put the post up tomorrow early. Best to all.

 

[Cleopatra]

Sorry for that but I have to post the request in public too so as everybody here sees it.

Mr. Coghill I received your book about Atlantis. I am reading it. You write beautifully BTW although I have never seen more arbitrary interpretation of the texts.

I wish to start a thread about that and I need your permission to post quotes from your book. Of course I can do that without your permission but since you are here noblesse oblige to ask for your permission.

Thank you.

 

[Pragmatist]

Sorry for that but I have to post the request in public too so as everybody here sees it.

Mr. Coghill I received your book about Atlantis. I am reading it. You write beautifully BTW although I have never seen more arbitrary interpretation of the texts.

I wish to start a thread about that and I need your permission to post quotes from your book. Of course I can do that without your permission but since you are here noblesse oblige to ask for your permission.

Thank you.

Sounds familiar, I've never seen a more arbitrary interpretation of physics than Roger's offerings!

I'll bet I can guess the ending. Atlantis was sunk because of the indiscriminate use of kettle leads by a group of evil conspirators....?

 

[Rolfe]

Ah, it's that time again. Roger, about the dysmenorrhoea study.

What was the name of the journal that was just about to publish it, again?

The Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Until you prove your claim, you are not entitled to refer to it in any convincing fashion.

Ridiculous.

You should know, it is providing evidence for, not proving, a claim that is important.

And why don't you tell what you said above to Claus, who freely refers to Lucianarchy's IP address as similar to the IP address of another user on another board, without presenting a single solitary scrap of evidence? Will you??

 

[The Don]

T'ai Chi - Please try not to derail this very interesting thread

CogresLab - do you have any comments regarding my interpretation of the fact that the rise in incidence of leukemia is due to greater survival rates rather than greater numbers of children are catching it ?

And please remember, if/when a link between power lines and cancer/ill health is demonstrated epidemiologically, there is still a deal of work to do in the lab to find the causative agent (if there is one). There is also a need for you to demonstrate how your various thingamabobbies and geegaws could possibly protect from the causative agent.

My current understanding about the link is that the jury is still out. The recent metadata studies seem to confirm that point of view.

 

[cogreslab]

To Cleopatra: Thank for your kind remarks! Of course you may quote from or critique the Atlantis book in any way you see fit, or from any of my other books.

 

[cogreslab]

The 1989 paper of Morris Kimball in BEMS journal collected the results of 40 experiments at 6 separate laboratories and investigated their statistical parameters in which 15 common hematological and serum chemistry endpoints as a result of ELF electric field were measured in mice, rats and mini-swine. The approach of the authors was to compare the P (probability) values from Fisher and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for significance, and the first part of their paper devotes some pages to an evaluation of this method.

Their broad argument is that using P values as a means of comparably assessing whether there is a significant effect of the exposure eliminates the need for comparison of different animal/exposure regimens but the risk of type 1 error means that P vaues of <0.01 or 0.02 should be used.

The results "offer evidence to suggest specific hematological responses to [ELF] electric field exposure".

"Possible increases due to exposure are seen in glucose, neutrophils, lymphocytes and eosinophils" (P=<0.01).

The Fisher tests seem to indicate a possible decrease in total protein, albumin, lymphocytes and percent lymphocytes due to exposure (P=< 0.01).

No statement re an exposure response relationship is possible from the paper since the study was designed to reflect only a response or no response.

My own interpretation of this paper (as it would be interpreted by my hypothesis) is as follows:

a) the increases seen in glucose reflect an impact on metabolism.
b) the significant bi-phasic lymphocyte response (also reported by several other authors such as Martin Blank at Columbia) suggests an effect on immunocompetence.

I do not know enough about neutrophilic responses to understand what is happening there.

The results are consistent with the general premise that ELF exposure may adversely affecting immune competence. A pivotal paper by Rosenberg and Terry (1977) established that a competent immune system is needed for tumour immunity.

There are a whole host of in vitro cell studies also reporting adverse effects of ELF electric fields on immune competence, starting with Dan Lyle's work in the early 1980s. In his study the inhibition of competence was apparent after only 4 hours exposure. His exposure level for the mice was similar to that one might experience under a high voltage powerline.

 

[cogreslab]

To the Don:

Yes: "My current understanding about the link is that the jury is still out". That is the case in my view also, because there are missing steps in the science (e.g. lack of good epi data re the ELF electric field, no accepted mechanism(s), etc.)

Some would also say that the utilities are keeping the courtroom door blocked!

Re your other point:

"CogresLab - do you have any comments regarding my interpretation of the fact that the rise in incidence of leukemia is due to greater survival rates rather than greater numbers of children are catching it ?"

No doubt at all that treatments for e.g. ALL in children are a vast improvement on thirty years ago (say 77 percent survival against only 11 percent in the 1970s, as I saw in a recent paper). The figures aren't quite so good for teens and young adults btw.

The picture then is that although there is greater successful intervention, the numbers to be treated are also growing at around 2 percent. These moreover are kids from mainly higher socio-economic backgrounds (i.e. with more electronic toys, and probably more hygenic homes ) since the lower levels are from lower incomes or in the US from black families, which is counterintuitive if the poorer families are arguably more likely to live near powerlines.

It might be possible to argue that the higher incidence arises from better diagnosis, or that improved intervention arises from earlier diagnosis, but I cannot logically see how higher incidence(the cart) can come from better treatment (the horse). Perhaps you would elaborate your point, using Stiller's data (available on the web)?

 

[Prester John]

The Don said:

CogresLab - do you have any comments regarding my interpretation of the fact that the rise in incidence of leukemia is due to greater survival rates rather than greater numbers of children are catching it ?

Some would say that cogreslab avoided this question.


edited to add:

Some would also say that editing your post to add large amounts
of new content is bad ettiquette.

 

[The Don]

Maybe it's a reading comprehension issue on your part .

To help you I have annotated (in bold italics) the abstract to facilitiate your understanding

We review the epidemiological evidence on childhood leukemia and residential exposure to 50/60 Hz magnetic fields we are reviewing a series of existing studies. The possibility of carcinogenic effects of power frequency magnetic fields (ELF-EMF), at levels below units of micro tesla (microT), was first raised in 1979 by a case-control study on childhood cancer carried out in Denver, USA A putative EMF-cancer link was identified in 1979. In that study, excess risks of total cancer and leukemia were observed among children living in homes with "high or very high current configuration", as categorised on the basis of proximity to electric lines and transformers brief description of the methodology - suggestion that the classification of exposure was sub-optimal. Many other epidemiological studies have been published since then, characterised by improved--although still not optimal--methods of exposure assessment since this date other studies have beee run with gardually improving means of assessing exposure (no it's still not perfect). At the end of 2000, the epidemiological evidence to support the association between exposure to extremely-low-frequency magnetic fields and the risk of childhood leukemia is less consistent than what was observed in the mid 90s the more recent studies (i.e. those in which the esposure has been more accurately been established) show epidemiological evidence at odds with the premise that EMF causes cancer. At the same time, a growing body of experimental evidence has accumulated against both a direct and a promoting carcinogenic effect of ELF-EMF. there's more evidence, from non-epidemiological sources, refuting a link between EMF and cancerSuch "negative" experimental evidence hampers a causal interpretation of the "positive" epidemiological studies we cannot do a causal analysis on the epidemiologal studies on the grounds that (1) the epidemiological evidence is evaporating now that the exposure is being determined properly and (2) there seems to be no link when we look at non-epidemiological studies

If you consider that positive, no wonder you see evidence everywhere!

Remember this ?

The key point in this particular case is

At the same time, a growing body of experimental evidence has accumulated against both a direct and a promoting carcinogenic effect of ELF-EMF

And this is because it looks at studies more recent than the 1989 example you quote

 

[Prester John]

Cogreslab, 2 of your above statements would seem to contadict each other:

"Possible increases due to exposure are seen in glucose, neutrophils, lymphocytes and eosinophils" (P=<0.01).

The Fisher tests seem to indicate a possible decrease in total protein, albumin, lymphocytes and percent lymphocytes due to exposure (P=< 0.01).

emphasis mine.

?

 

[The Don]

To the Don:
It might be possible to argue that the higher incidence arises from better diagnosis, or that improved intervention arises from earlier diagnosis, but I cannot logically see how higher incidence(the cart) can come from better treatment (the horse). Perhaps you would elaborate your point, using Stiller's data (available on the web)?

I already gave an example, I shall repeat it:

If 1 in 100 people catch a disease each year then, if those people all die in a year the incidence would be 1 in 100 (the number of new cases exactly equals the number of people dying, the incidence remains constant).

If instead, those people all survive, the incidence in year 2 (please forgive me rounding errors) would be 2 in 100. In year 3 this would be 3 in 100 and so forth. The number of new cases per year has not gone up, just the number of people living with the disease.

Somewhere in the middle of these two cases is the one where the number of people surviving year on year is increasing (better treatment) while the number of new cases is level (or falling). Where this is the case, the incidence will rise.

I don't really want to make a big deal out of this, I was just pointing out that rises in incidence can be due to greater survival rate. If my research (and hence livelihood) depended on demonstrating that there was a growing problem then I would choose incidence as the metric to demonstrate this. Of course this is somewhat disengenuous.

 

[cogreslab]

To the Don:

In the 1970-1980s much of the research was less in the hands of the power/miltary/communications industries than today. There was a good deal of research both into electric and magnetic fields, mainly at ELF, or at 2450MHz, because cellphone telecommunications was not an issue then.

Bill Kaune, a longstanding and respected researcher in this field told me when I asked why he had done nothing recently on electric fields, that "because no one would pay me for doing it". The last time WHO reviewed electric fields was some 17 years ago.

When you have a shackled scientific endeavour, punctuated by examples of what happens to those who step out of line (Liburdy's 1992 FASEB paper reporting an important electric field effect directly led to his scientific assassination. He was a truly outstanding scientist, now working in the LA patent office; Gerard Hyland was booted out of Warwick for his outspokeness on TETRA; the late Ross Adey was booted out of Loma Linda for refusing to alter the Motorola study results; The WTR chief scientist had to write a book to get the concerned message of their findings over to the public; Olle Johannsen at the Karolinska nearly lost his lab for a year or so; the McGill team reporting electric field (transient) effects were deprived of their data for two years; the EPA review of EMF in 1990 which called EMF a probable (B1) carcinogen was suppressed by the White House; Helen Dolk's paper reporting elevated incidence near Sutton Coldfield transmitters was held up for two years; Denis Henshaw lost his MRC funding partly for his views on corona ion effects which the NRPB debunked vigorously (though he hopes he might recover it), and even within NRPB a postulated lack of funding prevents them from even using the instruments they are given for research (and what can just two researchers do, anyway: we now have more graduates and researchers in our lab than they do!); and others like Keith Mclaughlan at Oxford nearly lost their jobs I suspect were it not for changing their tune to syncopate with the establishment drum); punctuated by evident academic accolades for those who stay in line (e.g. Profs Ray Cartwright, Coggon, and Barker, etc), it surprises me not a whit to read the kind of comments you quoted.

However, if one segregates out the Chinese, Russian and eastern bloc literature generally there is an entirely different flavour, far more indicative of adverse health effects (I quoted a few from the WHO meeting) and the kind of comments you cite cannot be made of these. These countries (20 percent of the global population) have PELS somethimes thousands of times below those in the West.

I recall a quote from Prince de Broglie the physicist saying that scientists with expert knowledge of their field should be free to depart from orthodoxy. That is not happening within the establishment today for commercial reasons imho.

But, since fortunately our lab is not dependent on establishment funding I can depart from received opinion in any way I decide, even though it might involve investigating a few "woo woo" devices from time to time, provided always that I bring with me a high degree of scientific rigour on the journey, and listen carefully to all arguments from all sides.

Ask yourself who wrote the text you quoted!