Bioelectromagnetics

richardm said:



:eek:

Is that Stewart Report he influenced the same one that says in para. 6.37 "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 ?
Click to expand...

One can only presume so!
 
Pragmatist said:
To continue what I was saying earlier....

I don't know what happened in Roger's court case. But I sincerely hope that the person he sued was a friend or accomplice of his who was willing to undergo this ordeal. Because if NOT, then here is a case of an innocent man carrying on a perfectly respectable small business who was harassed and embarassed by Roger, and who stood to lose his business and his livelihood, solely to advance Roger's agenda.
Click to expand...

Roger's side lost the case. Because it was in the U.K., that means they had to pay the defendant.
 
BillHoyt said:


Roger's side lost the case. Because it was in the U.K., that means they had to pay the defendant.
Click to expand...

True, but is that enough?

Consider this: this poor guy's name (and the name of his business) were splashed all over the media as being a promotor of "dangerous devices", and he guy himself surely must have suffered some anxiety over this. I would imagine that 99% of the costs he got would have gone to his lawyer as well. The article says he was awarded COSTS, and NOT damages. Unfortunately it appears he didn't counterclaim.

And you know the old saying about "mud sticks". Isn't it feasible that some people who would have bought from there may now have doubts about the guy even though he won?

But also consider this as well. This was a magistrates court. Not a high court. It was NOT tried in front of properly legally trained judges. If the guy had had a bad lawyer he might have LOST the case. And where would he have been then? Because the ruling wouldn't have gone against the mobile phone industry, it would have been specific to HIM. It would have put HIM personally out of business. He would then have had to appeal and could potentially have spent years in court trying to recover his reputation, not to mention the huge amounts of money it would have taken. What if Roger had gone bankrupt along the way? Then this poor guy would have been stuck with the costs and no way to recover them.

O.K. all that is hypothetical, but it simply illustrates why I think this action was particularly nasty and malicious. Unless of course Roger would care to enlighten us as to other facts outside the scope of the reports.
 
cogreslab said:
Thanks EHocking, btw, for elevating my wealth for me by hundreds of thousands of dollars at a stroke. Sadly for me, a million dollars is not the same however as a million pounds: is this the kind of accuracy you would bring to your experimental protocols?
Click to expand...
And to think I actually apologised because I thought I'd made a mistake.
<http://www.galonja.co.uk/asphalia/client/rwcbio.asp>
"Coghill Research Laboratories occupies a half acre site at Lower Race, Pontypool, where its £1 million 60 sq metres fully equipped laboratory specialises in bioelectromagnetics"

Yet more advertising hype, Roger?

So what is it, $1m as stated here or £1m as boasted on your website?
 
Pragmatist said:
To continue what I was saying earlier....

I don't know what happened in Roger's court case. But I sincerely hope that the person he sued was a friend or accomplice of his who was willing to undergo this ordeal. Because if NOT, then here is a case of an innocent man carrying on a perfectly respectable small business who was harassed and embarassed by Roger, and who stood to lose his business and his livelihood, solely to advance Roger's agenda.

If Roger genuinely believes that cell phones are so dangerous, the logical thing to do would be to sue the cell phone manufacturers, not some poor schmuck who just happens to sell them. One wonders if Roger's real motive here was simply to pick on a weak target, someone who presumably would not be in a good position to defend himself. I suspect this case tells us a lot about Roger's sense of fair play and his personal morality - but I hope I am wrong.

Another issue is these "devices" that Roger sells. I don't think any of us need to worry about whether the wine coaster really makes the wine taste better! But the alleged "protective products" are a different matter entirely as I have previously pointed out.

On Roger's web site he had a report about the "personal harmonizer". He concluded that it would "protect lymphocytes in vitro from cell phone radiations at 1800Mhz". Now, despite my personal opinion that his methodology is seriously suspect, I will acknowledge that this report makes it clear that the alleged protective effect is ONLY verified in-vitro, and that one cannot reasonably extend this conclusion to any "protective effect" in-vivo. This is spelled out several times in the report, and if anyone reads it properly they shouldn't draw the wrong conclusion and assume that it endorses it's use in real world situations.

However, if one goes to the manufacturer's web site, a somewhat different version of the same report is presented. In particular various paragraphs relating to the applicability of the results in-vitro ONLY have been removed. In THAT version there is only ONE minor reference at the end to in-vitro, and another very vague reference to the fact that no claim is made in-vivo. However, this would not be at all clear to a casual user.

Now, Roger cannot be held responsible for everything the manufacturer does, but one would think that as he clearly has a working relationship with the manufacturer that he would at least take some measures to ensure his report is not misrepresented for the purposes of a sale. And the fact that Roger himself sells the things, does nothing to convince that he is truly independent of the manufacturer.

Nor is there any "up front" declaration on his sales page to the effect that the device has NOT been certified to protect "in-vivo". In fact, when I raised the matter of the harmonizer with him only a few days ago in the context of "in-vivo protection", he made no mention of the "in-vitro" ONLY aspect of the device, and also even admitted that it now FAILS even his suspect test, and that as a result he MAY (this requires emphasis - MAY) stop selling it!

But it gets worse. Having admitted that his test cannot possibly determine whether such devices have any use "in-vivo", to quote him from the other thread:

"To conclude let me repeat, a study on cells in vitro does not mean that the effect will also occur in vivo in the living body."

he then goes on to "certify" other such devices as being effective in-vivo using exactly the same methodology which he has already assured us is NOT effective in-vivo! To wit, I refer to the following link as an example: http://www.radar3.com/report.doc where it says about the "Radar3" device:

Conclusion

1.The RA*D*AR device "completely protects" against electromagnetic radiation.

2.In addition, RA*D*AR users would find that their immune system was "over 20 percent stronger" than if they were not protected by RA*D*AR.

Seriously misleading? Draw your own conclusions. I presume that the immune system which Roger claims to be "over 20% stronger", refers to an immune system "in-vitro"??? Clever man indeed, our Roger!

Perhaps I should issue my own "Coghill Challenge". Roger, let's see you put your mouth where your money is for a change. Would you be prepared to stand inside a large scale microwave oven for a good 30 minute basting at a power density of say 800 watts per kg body weight, armed only with your wonderful Radar3 device? Or similarly in a gamma ray flux chamber of a nuclear reactor? Hmmm....thought not!

How many other such "devices" have you "certified" in this way? I shudder to think!

I think we can all conclude that Roger's motives for rubbish such as the above have nothing to do with science. No way, no how!

I'll stop here for the moment.
Click to expand...

Indeed. One suggests a little lie down may do you good. And wipe that drool from your chin.

Oh, when you do get back. How about trying to debunk the science instead of the character? I know you are new here, Garbo, but we skeptics tend to discuss substance not supposition.
 
Lucianarchy said:
Oh, when you do get back. How about trying to debunk the science instead of the character? I know you are new here, Garbo, but we skeptics tend to discuss substance not supposition.
Click to expand...

You are not a skeptic.
 
Oh, when you do get back. How about trying to debunk the science instead of the character? I know you are new here, Garbo, but we skeptics tend to discuss substance not supposition.
Click to expand...

Umm thats what we've been doing. Prags comments on Mr Coghill are as a result of the analysis of the substance of his (Mr Coghills') claims.
 
Lucianarchy said:


Indeed. One suggests a little lie down may do you good. And wipe that drool from your chin.

Oh, when you do get back. How about trying to debunk the science instead of the character? I know you are new here, Garbo, but we skeptics tend to discuss substance not supposition.
Click to expand...

I've already tried to discuss the science. But all I got was garbage back. Roger doesn't appear to KNOW any science. So what's the point? I don't speak Swahili, therefore it is pointless for me to engage in a discussion with a native Swahili speaker, we'd both make a lot of noise but there would hardly be any substantive communication. Similarly, I speak science, Roger doesn't (although he THINKS he does), and so the situation is the same, lots of noise and not much substance.

And now I want to know what is the substance behind some of Roger's other claims, so I'm asking.

And Roger has done his best to derail this thread from its origins. This thread started when Cleopatra raised the issue of the suspicious protective devices that Roger sells. Roger tried to derail that by starting a new thread about the issue of power line dangers and insisting that he would only respond to THIS thread. So here we are, but we're still waiting for a sensible answer as to how he can justify the claims he makes for his protective devices. We have been extremely generous in indulging his wish to discuss power line dangers and so he should reciprocate by discussing the issues that were originally raised and not satisfactorily answered.

As for "debunking", Roger has debunked himself far more effectively than *I* ever could! :)
 
What I have been trying to do is to get the thread back on track to the basic issues that have been raised and still not answered. And I thought some analysis may help do that.

The other issue that was raised and never answered is the "Coghill Challenge".

My view of it is this: it's completely meaningless and irrelevant. There is no point in arguing about it.

Why? Well consider this:

1. The "challenge" is limited to power company employees and requires a child of less than 3 months of age. So even if *I* wanted to take it up, I couldn't because I'm not a power company employee and I don't have a child of less than 3 months of age. That also rules out 99.9% of the population.

2. I don't personally believe the child would come to any harm. But, despite that, I wouldn't take up the challenge even if I could because:

a) It's basically unethical. It's a human experiment.
b) NOBODY has the right to put ANY child in any situation where there is ANY possibility of risk, no matter how remote, for money or publicity.
c) The child is a human being, it has human rights. I do not have the right to "volunteer" the child as it would be a breach of that child's rights, and the child doesn't have the capacity to volunteer by itself! Children are PEOPLE, not property.
d) If the child became ill for ANY reason during the experiment, Roger would claim his theory is vindicated. Since he has no proof of the alleged mechanism of harm in the first place, there is no objective way of testing whether any illness is really due to EMF's or simply other, natural, causes.
e) Children are most vulnerable in their first 3 months of life to all kinds of illnesses and problems, whatever the cause.

So *I* wouldn't do this "challenge", and furthermore I wouldn't be happy about anyone else doing it either. I'd be the first to protest about the infringement of the child's human rights, regardless of whether it was MY child or not. My objection would not have ANYTHING whatsoever to do with any possible risk, it would be to the fundamental ethics of the situation.

If Roger accepted this challenge and had any serious intention of allowing it to proceeed, he would be shown to be utterly evil and amoral. Plus of course it would be illegal under the European Human Rights legislation, and probably that of most civilised countries.

An illegal contract is unenforceable in law. So even if he lost, Roger wouldn't have to pay out because there is no way the challengee could legally enforce it. So what would be the point of accepting in any event?

Therefore the "challenge" doesn't exist. It CANNOT be legally taken up, nor can it be legally enforced, and is therefore irrelevant. All it is, is a stupid publicity shock tactic, in VERY poor taste.
 
As usual a whole heap of rubbishy value judgements have arrived here during my brief absence. as well as a lot of inaccuracies.

The posters know very well that I must now spend time correcting their foolish statements.

Let me start by correcting the comments of richardm regarding the Cwmbran court case. The magistrate found the defendent not guilty only because the defendant had made some effort to investigate the possibility that cellphones are hazardous, but at the same time made it quite clear that his judgment should not be taken as a pronouncement about cell phones. Since this was a criminal charge, I paid no costs whatsoever. The purpose of bringing the case in the first place was to draw world attention to this issue, and in that the affair was a spectacular success. As for the Stewart report, you quote one small part of their conclusions, and leave out the important advice about children and frequencies close to those of the brain. Yet another example of your selectivity, designed to impress casual readers of the thread. You also omit thateir recommendation to initiate a £7 million research programme, because there are so many unaddressed questions. The statement you quote refers clearly to the present state of knowledge, which in their view was inadequate.

As for my tactics, yes I will choose the "enemy"'s weakest place to attack. Exactly what you are trying on me, by making me responsible for other website statements! Sorry, but I don't spend my time checking over the 9000 plus web pages making statements about my work.
 
The early pages of this thread have gone all weird. All of Roger's posts before the part where Upchurch talks about archiving the thread are missing. This makes for a very peculiar read.

Mods, is there any practical way of restoring the invisible posts? Those of us who only recently came across the thread (well, me) would quite like to read it in context.

If Roger thinks that what he's doing is science, why does he keep posting in the paranormal forum? If this had been where it belongs, science and medicine, I for one would have seen it a lot earlier.

Now, this whole challenge thing is making me feel so ill that I'm seriously considering turning in my own Fellowship of the Institute of Biology, since it seems as if the spineless PTB don't have the bottle to throw Roger out for publicising such an unethical challenge. Or do they actually know about it?

Rolfe.
 
My random check on the first pages of this thread do not reveal any missing pages. Has anyone else got that problem, because I think it important that readers should be able to see the thread ab inition, and would ask the administrator to protect its entire integrity. Is any loss due to my habit of correcting the typos or adding extra text after I have posted, sometimes with several attempts?

A recent post makes the point that this thread is becoming unwieldy, and I am inclined to agree. May I suggest we split it into four topics: a): ELF issues, b) RF/MW issues, c) static magnetic field issues, and d) cancer mechanisms? I am also sorry that it is in within the paranormal topic, which was due to my ignorance of the system when I initiated it. To judge from some comments my site does not merit the status of science! However, I disgree to some extent, since some of the posts have scientific merit, but I am not sure whether shifting to some other area of the Randi website is appropriate right now, and would welcome others' views on this.

I next want to address PJ's question on my next post, to get back to important issues.
 
PJ said:

Its quite late and i'm tired, but you do not seem to have dealt with the fundamental questions i asked for example you say that



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The idea that carcinogens caused faulty metabolism was later taken up by Otto Warburg, and after that by Szent Gyorgii, who proposed in the early 1960s that the only way to deal with the cancer problem was to restore metabolism and that this could be achieved using quinones
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



yet you do not have the evidence to back this up. Instead you produce the Avemar study, which a) has not been replicated, and b) operates satisfactorarily within the standard model of carcinogenisis anyway. That the quinones have an anti cancerous effect does not support the idea that carcinogens cause faulty metabolism. The whole idea is wrong, a cell's metabolism is controlled by expression of its genome. This includes a number of mechanisms to prevent the cells becoming cancerous.

Additionally you have not addressed what I consider to be a major concern with your model, ie that in the absence of the carcinogen the cancer should not occur. As I said easy to test in-vitro. Has this been done, and if not why not?

MY Responses:

This post raises several issues, but seemed to me the best starting point, so may I start with this one, and then deal with others separately?

I take it you are asking for the references to the Warburg and Szent Gyorgii papers, to back up my statement?

Those below give a fairly complete view of what Warburg and Szent Gyorgii were saying:

Szent Gyorgyi Albert
The Living State and Cancer
IN: Submolecular Biology and Cancer. Ciba Foundation Symposium 67 p3 p18 1979

Szent-Gyorgyi
Submolecular biology and cancer
Excerpta Medica p1 p18 1979

SZENT-GYORGYI A.
Intermol. electron transfer may play a major role in Biol. reqn. defense and cancer.
Science i161 p988 p990 1968

SZENT-GYORGYI A. J.A. MCLAUGHLIN
Methyl glyoxal.
IJQC Qage . The living state i85 p137 1978

WARBURG Otto
On the Origin of cancer cells
Science i123 p309 p315 1956

WARBURG Otto
The Metabolism of Tumours
Constable and Co. London 1930
 
cogreslab said:
Let me start by correcting the comments of richardm regarding the Cwmbran court case.
Click to expand...
Good, we'll grade your response.
The magistrate found the defendent not guilty only because the defendant had made some effort to investigate the possibility that cellphones are hazardous, but at the same time made it quite clear that his judgment should not be taken as a pronouncement about cell phones.
Click to expand...
Magistrates, rog. -10 pts
Three charges, all dismissed -10 pts
After 2 days of expert testimony. That is, the magistrates didn't drop it because the defendant had made "some effort." They sat through 2 days of expert witness testimony on your claims about the hazards. They said "bull," and threw you out of court. -25 pts.
Since this was a criminal charge, I paid no costs whatsoever.
Click to expand...
Uh, no rog, you were ordered to pay the defendant's costs. You also told the media the exercise cost you 20,000 pounds just bringing the case to court

I have to get back to my cooking. I'm making a Jamaican Jerk roast. How appropriate, roger, that you should pop in here now.
"Mr Coghill, 58, of Coghill Research Laboratories in Pontypool, launched the case "out of concern for the public's health and safety".

He said he spent more than £20,000 privately bringing the case to court. "

That doesn't include the costs for Mr. Morgan. His attorney. His expert witnesses, etc. Or do you wish to claim BBC got it wrong?-50 pts

Your score, sir, is 5 points of 100. An "F" in the U.S. grading system.

Now, about the growing list of questions I am compiling for you. Are you going to address those? Remember, they will keep growing. The only way to shrink the list is to give truthful answers
 
PJ's next point re Avemar being unreplicated:

The Hungarian team developing Avemar have published at least 12 studies, including 3 clinical trials, as well as in vitro and laboratory studies on animals.
 
I repeat my statement that I paid no costs whatsoever, nor did I pay any costs to the defendant. All my costs were paid by third parties, including the costs of the barrister. The solicitors handled the case on a pro bono publico basis. Sorry, but you got it wrong again Bouncer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom