Hans Egebo (aka MRC Hans) is a self-professed electronics engineer
Roger, I can document my education. Can you?
and a member of the UK Skeptics.
No. Whatever the UK Skeptics is, I'm not a member. Keep digging Roger.
His profession implies that he is therefore also a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers ("IEE"),
No, it does not. Hint: I don't live in the UK. Keep digging, Roger.
a body dedicated to the design and production of the electrical and electronic devices and systems which now permeate modern society and provide much of the convenience of our lives today.
Uhh, no. All those devices are designed and produced by commercial companies. Keep digging.
These technologies have hardly occupied much more than one century in the three million years of evolutionary experience of mankind.
Why, you are RIGHT there, Roger, congratulations!
For some decades now scientists, particularly biologists, have been asking whether exposure to the inevitable fields and radiations of these electromagnetic ("EM") devices might constitute a health hazard. Scientific endeavour to find answers encompass cellular, live animal, human laboratory and epidemiological studies, of which in total there are now more than 25,000 in the peer reviewed published scientific literature.
And, you will of course provide a list of at least some of those 25,000 studies? 
.
Most of this research has unfortunately been funded by the very industrial and commercial interests standing most to lose from a consensus that such risks are real. This may indeed have led to biased results.
It certainly might.
*snip*
Though Hans Egebo may not be a IEE Working Group member himself, it is reasonable to suppose that he would share their view, and act to protect it.
Explain why this is reasonable?
This he has done by means of a grossly inaccurate and often overly emotive misrepresentation of the evidence from the bioelectromagnetics community and from myself in particular.
Do present examples.
The wary reader should not for one moment believe that Hans Egebo's attempts to demolish the arguments of those suggesting there may be risks attaching to chronic exposure to EM fields and radiations is in any way altruistic: Hans Erebo (or what ever his real name is, since unlike myself he hides behind anonymity) is simply protecting his own commercial interests.
No, Roger. You spelled my name correctly several times. Don't act as if you suddenly don't know how to spell it. Roger, I work in the pharmaceutical industry.
Since he has chosen to do this by a personal attack on me, I feel constrained to respond to the ludicrous allegations he has made in his webpage "Roger and me" purporting to to be a report to the Skeptics.
I'd be glad to correct any factual errors you might point to.
Opening remarks
In his "Report" Hans immediately confuses the reader with a typically stupid opening error. He says: "Whether I'm right is left to the judgement of the reader. Below are a number of statements from Mr Coghill, made during the abovementioned debate, with my comments in italics".
In fact the complete opposite is the case: throughout his long and unstructured text which follows it is my comments which are put into italics, not his!
Ahh, yes. A very fatal error, I agree . But since you spotted it and are able to understand the text anyway, let's assume the gentle reader can work around this as well.
At least fortunately he is consistent in this all-pervasive error, so once its stupidity is realised the reader can at least follow his drift. And drift they do: throughout the long and meandering text his comments arrive butterfly-like with no connecting rhyme nor reason, another cause of confusion by itself..
Well, as I try to follow your thoughts on electromagnetics, how can they be anything but butterfly-like?
The texts which follow are a corrective version of his often wildly inaccurate and untrue remarks. These corrections will appear over the next few days/weeks,
I will wait for them . But do remember that your statements are on record for anyone to see, so don't try to claim that I misquoted you. The quotes are meticulously correct, even down to your occasional typing errors.
through my need to devote time to more important matters than argument with an illogical biologically ill-informed self styled "electronic engineer by education". Perhaps Hans should have attempted to gain some knowledge of biology too.
I might, but do notice that I have not attempted to judge even one of your statements on biology.
The electric kettle lead issue
Probably the most glaring of all Hans Egebo's errors is his denial that whereas magnetic fields are only present when an electrical or electronic device is in use, electric fields are present all the time the appliance/instrument of interest is connected to the mains.
Thank you for confirming that you do not understand this issue.
He should read the webpage setting out the FACTFILE report of the IEE Working Group, which in defining what are electromagnetic fields says precisely what I myself said, and not what Hans Erebo purports! This is of course important since the thrust of epidemiological studies has been deliberately driven by the power utilities towards the magnetic and not the more important electric field.
Note that I have not addressed the epidemiological studies at all. All I have concentrated to do is document Roger's fatal lack of knowledge on electromagnetics.
*snipped, irrelevant references to the Istanbul conference.[/b]
The relation between electric and magnetic fields at ELF (power) frequencies.
Another false plank in Hans Egebo's attack on me is his mistruth about E-fields and B-fields at extremely low frequencies. Whereas at RF/MW frequencies there is a fixed relation between these two components of thje electromagnetic wave, at ELF frequencies no such relation exists because the plane wave has not yet formed so close to the emitting source.
And again, Roger demonstrates his lack of basic knowledge. The electric and magnetic fields are inextricably connected through the impedance of the total field. The impedance is, however, very variable, which is the exact reason it is extremely difficult to measure electric fields. Something Roger blithely ignores in all his attempts at research.
Otherwise it would be possible to claim that the magnetic field studies also deal with electric fields (as the utilities would like the public to think), which is not the case. They simply, as the IEE Working Group FACTFILE rightly says, have to be considered and measured separately. So no ELF magnetic field study can imply anything about the ELF electric field.
Electron Transport
Hans Egebo alleges that my use of the words electron transport are wrong. He may have some different definition peculiar to electronic engineers, but biologists the world over recognise this term as relating to the way in which biomolecules such as ubiquinone transfer electrons along a biological pathway.
Roger takes refuge in his usual technobabble.
The idea as Hans Erebro suggests, that this is simply electric current is ludicrous. The former is a directed and arrestablecontrol of electrons within metabolic pathways and the latter is the simple flow of electrons along a conductive path.
Ahh, there are ions too, but you have not even touched on that field.
Electric fields
Hans Egebo has an unusual definition of electric and magnetic fields, regarding them simply as forces rather than fields. Of course such fields exert forces on each other, but the bioelectromagnetics community and most physicists are habituated to describe these force fields as fields and not as forces.
Roger demonstrates his lack of understanding of forces, which of course form force fields. But my correction was not about forces or fields. Roger referred to them as ENERGIES, which is something different.
A field has spatial and temporal characteristics, and can vary in time and space, whereas a force is more likely to be a single vector. Hence the eelctric fields in any room can vary surprisingly depending on the incumbent appliances and house wiring.
Which was exactly my point: Electric fields are extremey difficult to measure, and doing so requires a profound understanding of the underlying physics, which Roger lacks.
Since most epi studies todate have measured (mainly magnetic fields) only in the room centre, the vital importance of local electric fields near say the bedplace has been obfuscated.
Because, unlike electrical fields, magnetic fields are quite simple to measure.
*snipped. rant about magnetic fields, which migh be relevant for another discussion, but not for this one.*
Electric fields and exposure
It was therefore clearly important for Hans Egebo to minimise the evidence for an electric field metric.
Why should it be important for me (thank you for spelling my name right again)?
This he sought to do by denying that ELF electric fields can penetrate the body.
And now you are going to dig you hole even deeper by trying to refute that.
The human body is transparent to magnetic fields but when these alternate they induce currents inside the body which give rise to electric fields.
But that is not what you are trying to prove. On the contrary, you are trying to prove that the level of magnetic fields are NOT the main issue, remember? Do try to argue your own case.
Moreover if the skin touches an electric current-carrying material, no matter how weak, the contact also penetrates the body, variably depending on the moisture content of the skin through perspiration or being wet.
Contact currents are totally irrelvant to this issue. We all know that if you touch a conductor, you might get a shock.
The saline solutions inside the body are astonishingly conductive of electric currents.
They are not astonishingly contictive, they are moderately conductive.
So ELF electric fields can be induced or arise throughout the body via contact currents.
Contact currents are irrelevant, Roger, for crying out loud. Nobody has claimed that contact currents are harmless.
Hans Egebo used sophistry to allege that my statement that electric fields penetrate the body was wrong and that they do not do so, an obvious untruth.
Contact currents have nothing to do with electric fields. You are pathetic, Roger!
Before the advent of electricity - increasingly ubiquitous during the last century - mankind had no previous evolutionary experience of alternating electric fields for millions of years. The rise of cancer incidence and mortality is coincidental with electricity usage.
The rise of cancer is coincidal with the use of newspapers too. Try to learn this by heart, if you wanna be a scientist, Roger: Correlation does not prove causality.
Magnetic Fields and exposure
*snipped, long irrelevant rant about magnetic fields*
Roger, do try to keep focus: You are advocating the importance of ELECTRIC fields, NOTR magnetic fields, which have been rather well researched. Why do I have to keep reminding you of your own mission?
During his many JREF tirades Hans alleged many untruths. e.g.:
When we said:
"SuperMagnets differ from all others in that their magnetic field strengths can be easily altered by the user according to the required application".
Hans said: <=This statement is a bald-faced lie.
No it is not! We supply two neodymium (not neodyne, Hans!) Supermagnets and a spacer as one kit. This means that the user can apply either one magnet (950G at the poleface) or two magnets spaced (1350G), or two magnets without the spacer (1750G). In this way various strengths of magnet fields can be applied.
This is just one example of Hans's deliberate or ignorant lack of veracity.
Roger, anybody who has gone through elementary school knows that you can stack magnets. And any magnets can be stacked. The bald-faced lie was that: "SuperMagnets differ from all others". ALL OTHER MAGNETS can be changed in that way too, Roger. Thank you for giving me opportunity to point out this lie of yours to our audience.
Conductivity of saline solutions
Another glaring error made by Hans Erebo concerns the conductivity of saline solutions. Astonishingly he counters my claim that the body's saline solutions are highly conductive with the statement:
"Actually the conductivity is only medium. It is low compared to skin, air and clothing, but high compared to metals". I cannot believe that any self styled electronic engineer could suggest that skin is more conductive than metals,
Roger, I won't bother to wade through the long thread to see if your citation is right. I'm gonna assume it is, in which case I made a mistake. I should have written resistance. See, I made a mistake. Happy now? Wanna compare mistakes? (hint: Thyristor).
or that saline aqueous solutions have only medium conductivity.
Saline solutions have medium conductivity. Lower than metal, higher than insulators, like skin. OK?
In another place in this debate it is argued that skin is an important insulator, and that therefore protects it against external electric currents (only partially true, as anyone in the electric chair might postumously testify). Why not drop a live electric fire into your bath Hans, and you would soon recognise the high conductivity of the bathwater, especially if you use bath salts!
Contact currents are still not what we are discussing here, Roger. For 240V, resistances as high as 1000 ohms are enough to give a potentially lethal shock.
Tests for water quality routinely use conductivity to establish the level of impurities: the more impurities the more conductive is the fluid, and the less impurities (e.g. dissolved salts) the less conductive it is.
Well, that is certainly right, Roger, I'll give you that. And the relevance of this is? (all provided the impurities are in the form of dissolved salts, of course)
