Bioelectromagnetics

[BillHoyt]

Before I start responses to Hans, Prag and PJ, I would like to say a word about Bob Liburdy, who has been labelled in this thread as a fraud.

Robert Librudy is one of the finest radiation scientists in the world. Not only does his long and impressive list of published papers go back to the 1970s, mostly in highly respectable journals like Rad Res, but any one who has witnessed his presentations will know his delivery and clarity are an example to anyone aiming to present a platform paper to their peers.

The disgusting attempt to brand him as a fraud is a permanent blot on the scientific landscape. His data was never questioned, only the presentation of graphs from which it derived, and the allegations of those who raised the issue have now well and truly been shown to be without any substance whatsoever.

Why the attack? His 1992 FASEB paper argued for an electric field metric, which as I have often said, is anathema to the utilities.

Just let's get that straight.

Yes, let's get that straight, but first we have to undo the curling-iron job you just did on the facts.

"On June 18, the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) declared that Dr. Robert Liburdy had committed scientific misconduct. ORI charged Liburdy with "intentionally falsifying and fabricating data" in two papers about EMF effects on calcium changes in rat blood cells"

Misconduct, dodger. MISCONDUCT. Not mistakes or simple errors, but misconduct. Digging deeper,
"The acting director of ORI, Chris Pascal, told Microwave News,... "We did find that there was falsification and fabrication in the three figures, and they were retracted—not corrected, but retracted." [1]

FALSIFICATION AND FABRICATION, dodger. Not corrected, dodger, but retracte. A total of three figures in two separate papers!

Making the data dance to a different tune, dodger. Graphs tell the story. They can also tell lies. But you, dodger, want to misrepresent this as some minor mishap or tiny error blown up by Darth Electriv Vader?

"Finally, in 1999, Robert Liburdy was fired for "massaging" data. Liburdy acknowledged that he had omitted some data for "illustration purposes," but in one case investigators found he had omitted 93 percent of the data that did not agree with his hypothesis. To call that a "massage" is like calling Michael Jackson's cosmetic alterations a "nose job."[2]

93 F***in percent of the data omitted!!!!!!!!!!!!!




[1] Microwave News
[2] Park

 

[cogreslab]

To Bouncer:

Yiou forgot to mention this from the same site:

"I admit no scientific wrong-doing," Liburdy stated in a letter published in Science(July 16), arguing that "the crux of the charges" center on his graphing techniques. "The raw data for my two calcium studies are valid. Thus, these papers are not being retracted, and my scientific conclusions stand as published." He explained that he agreed to the settlement because he could not afford "a protracted legal battle with ORI."

But this issue is important, Bouncer. I will get some other information for you regardfing this data, since you seem inclined to disagree with the scientific consensus throughout the world that Liburdy was innocent of the charges laid against him, and was the victim of a deliberate attack.

 

[BillHoyt]

To Bouncer:

Yiou forgot to mention this from the same site:

"I admit no scientific wrong-doing," Liburdy stated in a letter published in Science(July 16), arguing that "the crux of the charges" center on his graphing techniques. "The raw data for my two calcium studies are valid. Thus, these papers are not being retracted, and my scientific conclusions stand as published." He explained that he agreed to the settlement because he could not afford "a protracted legal battle with ORI."

But this issue is important, Bouncer. I will get some other information for you regardfing this data, since you seem inclined to disagree with the scientific consensus throughout the world that Liburdy was innocent of the charges laid against him, and was the victim of a deliberate attack.

Malarky.

"Robert P. Liburdy, Ph.D., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL): Based on an investigation report by the LBNL dated July 7, 1995, and an analysis of the data and information from Dr. Liburdy obtained by ORI during its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Liburdy, former staff biochemist at LBNL, engaged in scientific misconduct in biomedical research by intentionally falsifying and fabricating data and claims about the purported cellular effects of electric and magnetic fields (EMF) that were reported in two scientific papers: Liburdy, R.P. ABiological interactions of cellular systems with time-varying magnetic fields. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 649:74-95, 1992 ("ANYAS paper"); and Liburdy, R.P. "Calcium signaling in lymphocytes and ELF fields." FEBS Letters 301:53-59, 1992 (the "FEBS Letters paper"). The ANYAS and FEBS Letters papers were supported by a NCI, NIH, grant.

_

The ANYAS and FEBS Letters papers reported data indicating that EMF exert a biological effect by altering the entry of calcium across a cell's surface membrane. EMF, which are ubiquitous forms of radiation that arise from diverse sources such as power lines, home wiring, and household appliances, have been of public concern for potential health effects.

_

Dr. Liburdy's claims were potentially very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signaling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cellular functions.

_

Dr. Liburdy entered into Voluntary Exclusion Agreement with ORI in which he neither admitted nor denied ORI's finding of scientific misconduct, and the settlement is not an admission of liability. Dr. Liburdy voluntarily agreed, for the 3-year period beginning May 28, 1999, to exclude himself from any contracting, subcontracting, or nonprocurement transactions with the United States Government, and from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS. Additionally, he agreed to submit letters requesting retraction of Figure 12 of the ANYAS paper and of Figures 6 and 7 of the FEBS Letters paper."
ORI 1999 Annual Summary

The findings:

It was intentional.
He falsified data.
He also fabricated data.
And he fabricated claims.

You can stop the silly graphing technique apologetics. Most of us at JREF are native English speakers. We can read the truth.

 

[cogreslab]

The Liburdy Affair

The original charge was made in the Federal Register by the US Dept of Health and Human Services on 18 June 1999 about a paper published in FEBS letters in 1992, (right in the middle of the BEMS annual meeting at Long Beach). Liburdy saw the charges and immediately made a statement at the meeting.

First he pointed out that at his request other scientists reviewed the facts and did not agree with the charge. The complaint solely relates to three figures of fura data depicting calcium changes in one fig. in a 1992 review paper and two figs in a 1992 research paper (FEBS letters 301: 53-59).

His computer processed graphical presentation included a baseline adjustment and normalisation, a technique commonly used in the literature, to graphically overlay and compare exposed vs control traces. The data was never questioned, only the method of presentation. Perhaps Liburdy should have mentioned this automated processing, but few ever bother. The accusation that 93 percent of the data was omitted is rubbish: any graph could omit datapoints in the same way for the sake of clarity. This computer-processed data was then labelled as "fabricated" by the ORI.

Moreover that data was complemented by calcium 45 data presented in the same papers, and both data sets supported the paper's conclusions and scientific findings. This fact went unmentioned in the Govt. notice.

Liburdy concluded his address to the full BEMS society meeting with the following words:

"I should state for clarity that the breast cancer research I have conducted over the past six years is not part of these charges and has never been challenged. My review puiblished studies stand and these findings have been independently replicaterd by four other laboratories. For example at this meeting Dr Kabuto and Dr Ishido and their colleagues from Japan report in poster P40 that bthey successfully replicated our melatonin findings at 12mG. This constitutes the fourth independent laboratory replication of this finding".

AS the ORI conceded, "Dr Liburdy's finding were very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signalling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cell processes".

The history of ELF and RF effects on ionic calcium have been one of the longest enduring and most persistent effects reported in bioelectromagnetics. To have seen four replications of the effect in human lymphocytes from four different and reputable labs around the world (including their own EPA) brought the entire regulatory standards into question and thereby challenged the utilties and the military's position at one stroke.

The establishment had to do something to undermine this inconvenient science, and that was their attempt. It failed miserably. Today everyone holds up this effect on melatonin inhibition as one of the most robust mechanisms of interaction yet reported.

As for Bob Liburdy, he now works at a patent office.

 

[BillHoyt]

AS the ORI conceded, "Dr Liburdy's finding were very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signalling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cell processes".

First, dodger, correct the above quote. When will you stop trying to slip these alterations into the facts. Fix it, apologize for it, publish it in your next post, and then I will address the rest of your pap.

 

[cogreslab]

The Liburdy Affair (part 2):

Subsequent to the BEMS meeting, an article by one William Broad was submitted to the New York Times and printed on 24 July 1999, wher it was given front page coverage.

Virtually the entire global bioelectromagnetics community responded via the Bioelectromagnetics Society to that letter, which wrote to the NYT, saying

"The story, dealing with government findings of falsification by a single researcher, is unfairly misleading to the general public by presenting as finally resolved and settled a scientific issue that is still controversial and has significant public health implications.

"We find it strange that Mr Broad selects and quotes as his only expert witness in this area "Robert Park, a professor of physics at the Univ of Maryland who has long questioned the power-cancer link" and who holds, in the opinion of many, who are familiar with ELF-EMF health effects research, an unjustified extreme point of view.

The letter goes on to point out that the NIEHS in 1998 a) labelled EMF a possible carcinogen, and b) that passive regulatory action (i.e. educating the public, prudent avoidance, and means of reducing exposure) is warranted.

"Electric fields are mostly below 10 V/m in homes... However the story is quite different in the immediate vicinity -within a few feet - of some power lines or devices that are operated at high voltage or carry large currents (which produce the magnetic fields).

"We most strongly agree with Dr Olden's [of the NIEHS] statement that "more remains to be learned about the physics of magnetic field interaction with living systems".

In the end I will make sure that this particular public is educted too.

 

[cogreslab]

To Bouncer:

First, dodger, correct the above quote. When will you stop trying to slip these alterations into the facts. Fix it, apologize for it, publish it in your next post, and then I will address the rest of your pap.


__________________

What correction Bouncer? I note that I inadavertently at first wrote Faseb J instead of FEBS letters, if that's what you mean, but this was corrected when I came to give the exact reference.

Anyway. The factsa re as I and the Bioelectromagnetics Society have stated them, and you are the only one in this world who still maintains the contrary position. (As well as dear old Prof Park I suppose, but then no one listens to him either).

 

[Pragmatist]

The Liburdy Affair

The original charge was made in the Federal Register by the US Dept of Health and Human Services on 18 June 1999 about a paper published in FEBS letters in 1992, (right in the middle of the BEMS annual meeting at Long Beach). Liburdy saw the charges and immediately made a statement at the meeting.

The original charge was made by his employers the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, after one of Liburdy's own research assistants reported him for falsifying data.

First he pointed out that at his request other scientists reviewed the facts and did not agree with the charge. The complaint solely relates to three figures of fura data depicting calcium changes in one fig. in a 1992 review paper and two figs in a 1992 research paper (FEBS letters 301: 53-59),

His computer processed graphical presentation included a baseline adjustment and normalisation, a technique commonly used in the literature, to graphically overlay and compare exposed vs control traces. The data was never questioned, only the method of presentation. Perhaps Liburdy should have mentioned this automated processing, but few ever bother. The accusation that 93 percent of the data was omitted is rubbish: any graph could omit datapoints in the same way for the sake of clarity. This computer-processed data was then labelled as "fabricated" by the ORI.

Moreover that data was complemented by calcium 45 data presented in the same papers, and both data sets supported the paper's conclusions and scientific findings. This fact went unmentioned in the Govt. notice.

Liar. From the ORI newsletter updated 10/20/2003 at http://ori.dhhs.gov/ (my emphasis):

Coverage of this case in the scientific and popular press raised several important questions regarding the ORI findings: 1) are the ORI findings simply a matter of scientific interpretation over how the data were graphically presented in the figures? 2) did three experts independently review the facts and disagree with ORI's findings? and 3) are the scientific conclusions of these papers still valid? Based on the information ORI received from LBNL and directly from Dr. Liburdy, ORI will attempt to clarify these issues.

First, this is not a case involving a matter of data interpretation or the graphic techniques used by Dr. Liburdy to present his data in the three figures at issue. The evidence demonstrates that Dr. Liburdy intentionally falsified or fabricated data presented in the figures. For example, Dr. Liburdy fabricated four experimental traces in one figure by selecting discrete points representing only 7% of the data he had recorded, where the full set of data did not support the published effect. In addition, he did not reduce the primary data to calcium values, a step that was required to compare the experimental differences he claimed to have measured, and he did not repeat the experiment.

In the other two figures, Dr. Liburdy subtracted a large, spontaneously rising, background level of calcium concentration, but he claimed in both papers that the baseline was stable and constant, and he failed to describe his manipulations of data. The evidence also shows that Dr. Liburdy algebraically manipulated data in two figures to create dramatic differences between the experimental and the control data that was not present in the first figure and not significant in the second. Finally, he fabricated additional data points to cover up an unstable test condition revealed by his manipulations in the first case, and to change the timing of the experimental test in the second.

Second, Dr. Liburdy's own experts did not review all of the data or other evidence, including that identified by ORI, in this case. In contrast, two scientists who were experts in the EMF field or in the experimental techniques used by Dr. Liburdy and who served as consultants to ORI during its oversight review, agreed with ORI's conclusion that Dr. Liburdy published falsified data.

Liburdy concluded his address to the full BEMS society meeting with the following words:

"I should state for clarity that the breast cancer research I have conducted over the past six years is not part of these charges and has never been challenged. My review puiblished studies stand and these findings have been independently replicaterd by four other laboratories. For example at this meeting Dr Kabuto and Dr Ishido and their colleagues from Japan report in poster P40 that bthey successfully replicated our melatonin findings at 12mG. This constitutes the fourth independent laboratory replication of this finding".

AS the ORI conceded, "Dr Liburdy's finding were very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signalling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cell processes".

The history of ELF and RF effects on ionic calcium have been one of the longest enduring and most persistent effects reported in bioelectromagnetics. To have seen four replications of the effect in human lymphocytes from four different and reputable labs around the world (including their own EPA) brought the entire regulatory standards into question and thereby challenged the utilties and the military's position at one stroke.

The establishment had to do something to undermine this inconvenient science, and that was their attempt. It failed miserably. Today everyone holds up this effect on melatonin inhibition as one of the most robust mechanisms of interaction yet reported.

As for Bob Liburdy, he now works at a patent office.

You are also conveniently omitting to mention that even IF Liburdy's data was totally valid, that 93% of the data points actually REFUTED his claim and his hypothesis!

I don't know what you hope to achieve with these ridiculous lies. You get caught out every time. Haven't you realised yet that we DON'T take your word for things, we check them out ourselves.

BTW, nice attempt to sidetrack the issue away from YOUR claims once again.....

 

[Rolfe]

Virtually the entire global bioelectromagnetics community responded via the Bioelectromagnetics Society to that letter, which wrote to the NYT, saying

Now, care to hazard a guess about who this "community" is? (The only other place I even saw the word was on a homoeopathy site, which may say something.) And how many people it consists of? And just what sort of standing they have in the wider scientific community?

The Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

[BillHoyt]

What correction Bouncer? I note that I inadavertently at first wrote Faseb J instead of FEBS letters, if that's what you mean, but this was corrected when I came to give the exact reference.

Anyway. The factsa re as I and the Bioelectromagnetics Society have stated them, and you are the only one in this world who still maintains the contrary position. (As well as dear old Prof Park I suppose, but then no one listens to him either).

Your capacity for twisting and fabricating facts is inordinately high. When coupled with your near-nil capacity for examination of the facts and for self-correction, this is indeed a most questionable combination.

Pragmatist has already sprung the most important information. So I'll get back to your peculiar twist of the ORI summary. Here is the salient poriton of the actual summary:

"Dr. Liburdy's claims were potentially very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signaling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cellular functions."

Here is your version of it:

"Dr Liburdy's finding were very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signalling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cell processes."

The first rule of scholarship is to get the quotes right.
The second rule of scholarship is to comprehend what it is you are quoting. Which brings us to your unfounded value judgment wrappings:

"AS the ORI conceded, "Dr Liburdy's finding were very important when published in 1992 because they purported to link EMF and calcium signalling, a fundamental cell process governing many important cell processes"."

There was no concession here, dodger. This was a slam. When you omitted the word "potentially" you changed the tenor to fit your interpretation. ORI is conceding nothing, but clearly signalling that this paper would have been pivotal had it not been a scam. That if the data had not been cooked, it would have been significant. But that since the data were clearly falsified, and fabricated the paper is suitable for lining budgie cages. Couple that with "purported" and you get the clear picture of an office doing its best to tell the scientific community to remove the paper from consideration and take care of their budgies instead.

But now lets move onto the 93% and Robert Park. You remember, the President of the American Physical Society of whom you wrote: "dear old Prof Park I suppose, but then no one listens to him either." Right. Robert Park, president of the American Physical Society, publisher of the world's most respected and most widely-read journals in physics. No listens to him. Right.

You sad, deluded old putz.

 

[Pragmatist]

Well said Bill.

By the way, the original charge was made against Liburdy in 1995, not 1999. It was 1999 when they finally fired Liburdy. And Roger also conveniently omits to mention the $3.3 million in research grants that Liburdy obtained from the NIH, BASED entirely on the fraudulent data. Of course that couldn't POSSIBLY be a motive could it?

And just for the record I note that once again Roger would like to address the points raised by me, Hans, PJ etc....but doesn't. He always has time to lie to us though. Funny that, isn't it?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Before I start responses to Hans, Prag and PJ, I would like to say a word about Bob Liburdy, who has been labelled in this thread as a fraud.

*snip*

Diversion duly noted. You now have zero iota of credibility, as far as I'm concerned.

Hans

 

[Pragmatist]

Found something very interesting on Google. The clip below is an extract from the Times Higher Educational Supplement dated 2 days ago. Seems people are getting wise to Roger.

http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2014009

SCARES

Non-reviewed research

* In 1998, self-employed researcher Roger Coghill released research straight to the media saying that the waves produced by mobile phones could damage the activity of lymphocytes in the body's immune system. Over the next five years his claims, though contradicted by most other evidence, were cited in 119 news publications in the UK alone. Most made no reference to the unofficial status of the research paper or to the fact that other research disagreed.

Maybe someone should invite them to look here!

 

[BillHoyt]

Found something very interesting on Google. The clip below is an extract from the Times Higher Educational Supplement dated 2 days ago. Seems people are getting wise to Roger.

http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2014009

SCARES

Non-reviewed research

* In 1998, self-employed researcher Roger Coghill released research straight to the media saying that the waves produced by mobile phones could damage the activity of lymphocytes in the body's immune system. Over the next five years his claims, though contradicted by most other evidence, were cited in 119 news publications in the UK alone. Most made no reference to the unofficial status of the research paper or to the fact that other research disagreed.

Maybe someone should invite them to look here!

Pragmatist / Rolfe,

Did you notice the story below this one, about Shattock's MMR research? Isn't this the research some anti-vax quack recently ballyhooed here on JREF? I think the thread was very recent. Anybody remember it? Is this not the same research?

 

[Pragmatist]

Pragmatist / Rolfe,

Did you notice the story below this one, about Shattock's MMR research? Isn't this the research some anti-vax quack recently ballyhooed here on JREF? I think the thread was very recent. Anybody remember it? Is this not the same research?

Sorry, doesn't ring any bells with me, I must have missed that thread. A forum search on "Shattock" and feasible mispellings/variants thereof didn't show anything either.

I did find another interesting article about our Rog though!

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1999/nd99/nd99arkin.html

 

[cogreslab]

To Prag:

The orignal report re Liburdy may have been submitted by LBL in 1995, but the original charge by ORI was only made in 1999, and Liburdy responded immediately. I do not believe either he or anyone else was aware of it before the 1999 BEMS meeting.

As for the alleged misquote by me (see Bouncer's post) omitting the word "potentially", I was quoting from a document which also omitted the same word, and there was no intention on my part to strengthen the statement. Bouncer is being overly pedantic as usual imho. Liburdy's study (as well as the three or so replications after then) are important, not just potentially important.

Though I am determined to get to responding to Hans et al., I also wish to defend the allegations made against Liburdy. Tomorrow moreover there is an Environment Council meeting in London with the NGT discussing ways forward over the ELF exposure problem to which I am going, and as usual many things on my return from Washington have deprioved me of the time i would like to spend on this thread, but hopefully by the end of the week things will have got back to normal and i can resume full time on these matters.

I formally claim that the NGT are sitting on their own privately conducted nationwide study (Draper, Swanson et al.) showing a near 2 fold elevation of childhood leukaemia within 100 metres of HV powerlines. Unless they go public on this very soon I and others intend to bring a class action which will make the 1998 cellphone case look like a child's teaparty.

 

[Darat]

If this thread every gets back to discussing Roger's claims and ..ahem.. "products" could someone drop me a PM?

 

[cogreslab]

The THES comment is complete BS.

EG: from BEMS J, Feb 2003:

Exposure of human peripheral blood lymphocytes to electromagnetic fields associated with cellular phones leads to chromosomal instability.

Mashevich M, Folkman D, Kesar A, Barbul A, Korenstein R, Jerby E, Avivi L.

Moreover there was also a good deal of published evidence of RF effects on lymphocytes in 1998 and my campaign was based on that and not solely on our opwn lab research, which was anyway peer review published in 2000.

 

[cogreslab]

RF effects on lymphocytes and the haemopoietic system:

I support my previous statement with Table 5.19 from Stewart's 2000 review (p94). "Epidemiological studies of lymphatic and haemopoetic cancer in people potentially exposed to RF radiation through work or hobbies".

10 of 11 studies are listed there are pre 1998 (i.e. only one after 1998) of which only 1 (Garland et al, 1990) reported an OR of less than 1.1, and four reported ORs exceeding 2.8. None of these came from our lab.

Must go now, but should be back on line on Wednesday.

 

[Pragmatist]

To Prag:

The orignal report re Liburdy may have been submitted by LBL in 1995, but the original charge by ORI was only made in 1999, and Liburdy responded immediately. I do not believe either he or anyone else was aware of it before the 1999 BEMS meeting.

Sigh.. Keep digging Roger!

I did a bit more research to be sure of the point. Apparently the original complaint by his lab assistant was first filed in 1994 and concerned his research of THAT time, not the 1992 research. LBL then started an investigation and had concluded by mid 1995 that he had committed research fraud (in respect of which work I don't know). So they filed a request with the ORI for an independent investigation. As part of that investigation ORI had to obtain further research data from Liburdy.

Here is an extract from the Federal Register (my emphasis):

Federal Register: June 17, 1999 (Volume 64, Number 116), Notices, Page 32503-32504

Robert P. Liburdy, Ph.D., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Based on an investigation report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) dated July 7, 1995, and an analysis of the data and information from Dr. Liburdy obtained by ORI during its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Liburdy, former staff biochemist at LBNL, engaged in scientific misconduct in biomedical research by intentionally falsifying and fabricating data and claims about the purported cellular effects of electric and magnetic fields (EMF) that were reported in two scientific papers: (1) Liburdy, R.P. ``Biological interactions of cellular systems with time-varying magnetic fields. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 649:74-95, 1992 (``ANYAS paper''); and (2) Liburdy, R.P. ``Calcium signaling in lymphocytes and ELF fields.'' FEBS Letters 301:53-59, 1992 (the ``FEBS Letters paper''). The ANYAS and FEBS Letters papers were supported by a National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant.

So you want us to believe that he is found guilty of research fraud by LBL, who think it serious enough to call in the ORI, who then contacted Liburdy and demanded his data for review and Liburdy didn't know about it until 4 years later? Oh please!

And then we have the matter of Liburdy's claims after the event which you quoted earlier and the subsequent definitive response by the ORI which I quoted which says that the ORI does NOT accept Liburdy's claims of innocence and misinterpretation. Data was FORGED, not just badly graphed. Experts alleged to have examined the work and supporting Liburdy (2 of them) did NOT see all the data, and the ORI are even offering the full data to anyone who wishes to investigate and/or challenge their findings. We also note that after 5 years NOBODY has offered any legitimate reinterpretation of the data that would support any conclusion other than the one ORI reached - which was that Liburdy's work was fraudulent. I also note that the ORI explicitly say that Liburdy's data is NOT valid and neither are his "scientific" conclusions.

ORI are saying that Liburdy committed fraud. They say his subsequent statements are not true and that he is a liar.

I don't believe Liburdy, and I most certainly don't believe YOU!

As for the alleged misquote by me (see Bouncer's post) omitting the word "potentially", I was quoting from a document which also omitted the same word, and there was no intention on my part to strengthen the statement. Bouncer is being overly pedantic as usual imho. Liburdy's study (as well as the three or so replications after then) are important, not just potentially important.

There is no ALLEGED misquote. The original quote is in the public domain and your rendition of it is NOT correct. There is no "alleged" about it. You misquoted. I don't believe your excuse that it was misquoted in the document you were reading (unless it was a document YOU wrote!). You don't seem to realise that you have lied to us once too often, nobody on here trusts your claims any more.

And as for being "overly pedantic". A quote is either accurate or it isn't. There is nothing pedantic about expecting an accurate quotation, particularly where the omitted word makes a world of difference to the interpretation. Consider the two statements in relation to your "challenge":

1) Roger Coghill is a child killer.
2) Roger Coghill is POTENTIALLY a child killer.

So I take it that if I go around saying the first of those things you would have no objection? Because my omission of the word "potentially" is unimportant and anyone who insists that it has to be there is being overly pedantic? Yeah, right!

Keep digging...

Though I am determined to get to responding to Hans et al., I also wish to defend the allegations made against Liburdy. Tomorrow moreover there is an Environment Council meeting in London with the NGT discussing ways forward over the ELF exposure problem to which I am going, and as usual many things on my return from Washington have deprioved me of the time i would like to spend on this thread, but hopefully by the end of the week things will have got back to normal and i can resume full time on these matters.

Diversion noted.

I formally claim that the NGT are sitting on their own privately conducted nationwide study (Draper, Swanson et al.) showing a near 2 fold elevation of childhood leukaemia within 100 metres of HV powerlines. Unless they go public on this very soon I and others intend to bring a class action which will make the 1998 cellphone case look like a child's teaparty.

Another diversion noted. Prove it by the way, I don't believe you.