Roger Coghill is back.

Lothian said:
I was in Sainsburys recently waiting for a prescription when I noticed they were selling the phone guards. I saw the that Rogers Lab did the testing.

I also noted they had nearby displayed a brochure of products. All sorts of legitimate things included such things as bandages and braces. I recall it was an A4 binder with laminated pages (?)

But there was also contained 2 pages full of magnet ‘therapy’ jewellery. The items were accompanied by claims such as ‘proven to help blood circulation’ that missed the usual ‘thought to’ or ‘believed to’ that they normally contain to get round the fact that they don’t work.

Unfortunately I only saw this as my prescription arrived and was in a hurry to get home before the frozen stuff I bought previously melted but I intend taking a closer look next time and getting a copy so I can complain officially.

I’m interested to know if it was just my store or whether this catalogue is at all Sainsburys stores. I know David Sainsbury’s charity takes an interest in medical matters so it may be worth copying him in.
Click to expand...

I was rather horrified to find this on the web:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-142797.html

"Not that the ASA are much good at detecting pseudosicence when it's presented to them.
Last year I took a complaint against the makers of the ' Mobile Protection Chip' last year but the ASA accepted the manufacture's claims in full based on ' laboratory evidence ' from these guys Harry Oldfield (http://www.electrocrystal.com/pip.html) and Roger Coghill (http://www.cogreslab.co.uk/) Two well established psuedoscientists.

I appealed the ASA decision and I asked the ASA to have the data submitted by the company evaluated by someone with a technical background ( I suggested that the ASA ask Comreg for technical advice on the matter since they are responsible for electromagnetic field strength monitoring) but the ASA chose to dismiss the case and accept fully the manufacturers claims for the mobile protection chip instead."
 
Psiload said:
By hooking it up to a Bunsen burner, using methane as fuel, and comparing it against A COMPETITOR'S MAGNETIC FUEL-SAVING GIZMO!!!

You've got to marvel at the kind of convoluted, fantastic, bizarro-world logic that Roger applies to testing such a simple, straight forward claim.
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Wot? No Lymphocytes? :)

And I think "logic" is too generous a term... :)
 
If you want to find every magnetic therapy and bullsh*t electromagnetic protection device on the Internet, just Google for Roger Coghill. I think he makes money 'testing' these for various people and producing reports purporting to prove them 'scientificably'.

Let us know when you pounce, Rolfe.
 
It seems Coghill is busy with a new "project"...

From: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bioelectromagnetics/message/2623

From: "Roger Coghill" <roger@c...>
Date: Fri Oct 29, 2004 3:14 pm
Subject: RE: [bioelectromagnetics] Re: press conference on mobil radiation and brain c...

Dear Marko, and any who may also see this.

Just to mention, on the subject of peer reviewed journals, that a new online
peer-reviewed journal is due to publish its first issue in January 2005
called European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics, and welcomes submissions
from authors as of 1 November 2004. Further information is on their website,
www.ebab.eu.com including instructions to authors.

Roger Coghill
MA (Cantab) C Biol MI Biol MA (Environ Mgt)

Coghill Research Laboratories

Visit our website: http://www.cogreslab.co.uk"

Here is an earlier reference, which shows clearly who is behind this:

From: http://www.fgf.de/english/aktuell/news-hot/hotline_neu.php?id=133

"New Bioelectromagnetics journal starting in January 2005
“European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics” will be the title of the new bi-monthly fully peer reviewed on-line scientific journal publishing papers in the field of bioelectromagnetics. The first issue is announced for January 2005. The journal will have an international Editorial Board, but will offer a central platform for European bioelectromagnetics research, whose adherents often find it difficult to publish except in scattered journals not having bioelectromagnetics as a core focus. The managing Editor will be Simon Best who has had many years experience in bioelectromagnetics reporting.
http://www.cogreslab.co.uk/"

If you go to the listed web site in the first post above, you will find a list of people on the editorial board. Coghill isn't mentioned, but who actually OWNS this "journal"? Simon Best isn't listed either.

If you are in any doubt however, I suggest you look at the online sample issue 1 and its keynote article which is here:

http://anon.user.anonymizer.com/http://www.ebab.eu.com/papers/ebabsample.pdf

Yep, you guessed it, the article is nothing other than "Melatonin - a molecule for the modern age" by none other than Roger Coghill MA etc....

I haven't read the article yet. Will do now. I have smelling salts on hand, don't worry anyone! :)
 
Pragmatist said:
It seems Coghill is busy with a new "project"...

From: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bioelectromagnetics/message/2623

From: "Roger Coghill" <roger@c...>
Date: Fri Oct 29, 2004 3:14 pm
Subject: RE: [bioelectromagnetics] Re: press conference on mobil radiation and brain c...

Dear Marko, and any who may also see this.

Just to mention, on the subject of peer reviewed journals, that a new online
peer-reviewed journal is due to publish its first issue in January 2005
called European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics, and welcomes submissions
from authors as of 1 November 2004. Further information is on their website,
www.ebab.eu.com including instructions to authors.

Roger Coghill
MA (Cantab) C Biol MI Biol MA (Environ Mgt)

Coghill Research Laboratories

Visit our website: http://www.cogreslab.co.uk"

Here is an earlier reference, which shows clearly who is behind this:

From: http://www.fgf.de/english/aktuell/news-hot/hotline_neu.php?id=133

"New Bioelectromagnetics journal starting in January 2005
“European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics” will be the title of the new bi-monthly fully peer reviewed on-line scientific journal publishing papers in the field of bioelectromagnetics. The first issue is announced for January 2005. The journal will have an international Editorial Board, but will offer a central platform for European bioelectromagnetics research, whose adherents often find it difficult to publish except in scattered journals not having bioelectromagnetics as a core focus. The managing Editor will be Simon Best who has had many years experience in bioelectromagnetics reporting.
http://www.cogreslab.co.uk/"

If you go to the listed web site in the first post above, you will find a list of people on the editorial board. Coghill isn't mentioned, but who actually OWNS this "journal"? Simon Best isn't listed either.

If you are in any doubt however, I suggest you look at the online sample issue 1 and its keynote article which is here:

http://anon.user.anonymizer.com/http://www.ebab.eu.com/papers/ebabsample.pdf

Yep, you guessed it, the article is nothing other than "Melatonin - a molecule for the modern age" by none other than Roger Coghill MA etc....

I haven't read the article yet. Will do now. I have smelling salts on hand, don't worry anyone! :)
Click to expand...
In the Instructions for Authors section, we see the guidelines for authors submitting articles:

http://www.ebab.eu.com/aut_inst1.asp

Among them:

Assurances, Notifications, and Conflicts of Interest:

Authors must acknowledge all financial or in kind support of the work from sources outside of their institutions. They must also identify any significant past or present situations that plausibly might affect the ability of any of them to make disinterested scientific judgments related to the work. (my emphasis) Such situations are impossible to list fully, but they include past or present employment or affiliation to any activist group; paid or unpaid consulting; substantial financial interest or ownership on the part of an author or a close family member or other personally significant individual; other types of close or adversarial personal or professional relationships; etc. Such situations also include some types of participation or oversight by sponsors in research design, implementation, or publication.
Click to expand...

So the Editorial Board had no problem with Roger's Gainex(tm) Magnetic Fuel Economiser, or his "testing and certification" work?

If those aren't conflicts of interest, then what the hell is?
 
I just read it. I'm slowly getting over it...

It's the same BS as usual. Full of non-sequiturs, hasty conclusions and outright misinformation. I think a rebuttal is called for.

I really don't know what to say about the suggestion that we should all stock up on melatonin in case we are hit by terrorists with a dirty bomb, for example!

I wonder where we should buy it from? Oh, silly me, I forgot... :)

And I have learned something new: "Below 30 Mhz electric and magnetic fields are measured in volts and amps per metre". Silly me again, there I was thinking that electric and magnetic fields were measured in those units at ALL frequencies....

Oh, and my question about who is really behind this alleged "new journal" is answered on the first page:

"Published by Medcross Ltd, Pontypool, Wales"

Anyone else think this is just adding insult to injury?
 
Psiload said:
In the Instructions for Authors section, we see the guidelines for authors submitting articles:

http://www.ebab.eu.com/aut_inst1.asp

Among them:

Assurances, Notifications, and Conflicts of Interest:

So the Editorial Board had no problem with Roger's Gainex(tm) Magnetic Fuel Economiser, or his "testing and certification" work?

If those aren't conflicts of interest, then what the hell is?
Click to expand...

Tip of the iceberg!

He's affiliated with dozens of protest and activist groups.
He acts as a "consultant" on radiation hazards (don't laugh)
He owns the bloody journal!
He sells friggin' Melatonin (allegedly - we still don't know if there's any melatonin IN the crap he sells!).

And all this is disclosed WHERE exactly?

This is just TOO much!
 
Pragmatist said:
Tip of the iceberg!

He's affiliated with dozens of protest and activist groups.
He acts as a "consultant" on radiation hazards (don't laugh)
He owns the bloody journal!
He sells friggin' Melatonin (allegedly - we still don't know if there's any melatonin IN the crap he sells!).

And all this is disclosed WHERE exactly?

This is just TOO much!
Click to expand...
To be fair to Roger, the lion's share of his funding probably does come from a DVD rental business. :D
 
Where can one do a whois on an eu country code registration? Uwhois doesn't seem to recognize it.
 
http://www.eu.com will cough up subdomain registrations. It seems to be delegating to whois.centralnic.net.

ebab.eu.com is registered to Coghill in the name of Medcross Ltd; the email contact is roger at cogreslab. There's an address and a telephone number if you're really ornery.
 
I'm sorry, but the minute I read the one-liner about the new journal on Roger's web site, I just assumed the rest without even really thinking about it. I can't find the reference right now, but I recall that when Roger left Cambridge in the early '60s he first went to work for Morgan Grenfell, but then moved into the financial arm of some branch of publishing. If this is on his web site I'm not sure where I should be looking, but I definitely saw it somewhere.

He spent 20 years, from 1962 to 1982 approximately, completely out of touch with science and working in financial institutions, mostly connected to publishing. He worships the "peer reviewed paper" quite blindly (as we all know, everything depends on the peers, doesn't it, and I think anyone who might be seen as Roger's peer is probably wanting in all sorts of ways). So, what could be simpler. Set up your own journal, appoint your own peers, and off you go.

Rolfe.
 
O.K. a little more digging.

So who exactly is Simon Best, the "Managing Editor" of this new "independent journal"?

From: http://www.em-hazard-therapy.com/

"Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy is published 6 times a year.

Edited by award winning medical journalist Simon Best, he is assisted by Alasdair Philips, Director of Powerwatch UK.

Contributors include researcher Roger Coghill, biophysicist Dr Cyril Smith and optician/researcher Anne Silk."

O.K. the "usual suspects".

Alasdair Philips who does "consultancy" for people on how dangerous their homes are (and presumably charges accordingly), and one of Coghill's co-conspirators in the disgusting set up of Wayne Morgan, the innocent phone vendor whose business they ruined.

Cyril Smith, into pendulums, dowsing rods, vibrating acupuncture meridians and above all, King of the Hard Boiled Egg Slicer.

Don't know who Anne Silk is...yet.

More here:

From: http://www.kindredspirit.co.uk/ARTICLES/5229_mobile_phones.asp

•Simon Best is the co-author, with biophysicist Dr Cyril Smith of Salford University, of the book Electromagnetic Man: health and hazard in the electrical environment (Dent, 1989). He edits and publishes the quarterly news report ‘Electromagnetic Hazard & Therapy’ which covers all aspects of electromagnetic pollution as well as the positive uses of electromagnetism in various therapies. For details and back issue contents, send an s.a.e. to: Electromagnetic Hazard & Therapy, Box 2039, Shoreham, W. Sussex BN43 5JD. Email: simonbest@EM-hazard-therapy.com Website: www.EM-hazard-therapy.com
•Simon offers a live premium rate Helpline (£1.50/ min, UK only) on: 0906 4010237.

That last line really says it all!

As for who "Anne Silk" is, just found this:

From: http://www.divstrat.com.au/dowsing/General/book reviews/ancient_energies_of_the_earth.html

"Anne Silk's contribution to this work is her scientific understanding of the effects of ambient electromagnetic energies on the human body. I was particularly interested in their theory that crossing energy leys could contain hologram-type images such as ghosts and apparitions which are released by the interaction of the observer on those leys; apparitions which show some awareness of the observer could be blind springs where spirits are trapped and that many hallucinatory experiences can be generated by "hot spots" from modern electrical sources, natural energy sources and seismic energy changes. Manifestations that seem real to the observer may be caused therefore by the earth-energy-induced stimulation of the brain and in evidence Anne's research shows the large differences in brain activity taken from an individual in a place of "healthy" earth energy as opposed to a second depressed activity scan taken of the same individual over an underground stream.

Which I guess ALSO says it all really...
 
Rolfe said:
He worships the "peer reviewed paper" quite blindly (as we all know, everything depends on the peers, doesn't it, and I think anyone who might be seen as Roger's peer is probably wanting in all sorts of ways). So, what could be simpler. Set up your own journal, appoint your own peers, and off you go.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, its a good foil for the standard skeptic request for citations from peer-reviewed journals. There's so much of this woo-vanity press out there now that this request falls on its face. The next layer of the problem is even worse, though, because it now gives them self-fulfilling evidence of the postmodernist rhetoric/narrative/tribes claims. We need to be very circumspect and very clear in our requests and our explanations of why such papers are of nearly zilch value.
 
Rolfe said:
I'm sorry, but the minute I read the one-liner about the new journal on Roger's web site, I just assumed the rest without even really thinking about it. I can't find the reference right now, but I recall that when Roger left Cambridge in the early '60s he first went to work for Morgan Grenfell, but then moved into the financial arm of some branch of publishing. If this is on his web site I'm not sure where I should be looking, but I definitely saw it somewhere.

He spent 20 years, from 1962 to 1982 approximately, completely out of touch with science and working in financial institutions, mostly connected to publishing. He worships the "peer reviewed paper" quite blindly (as we all know, everything depends on the peers, doesn't it, and I think anyone who might be seen as Roger's peer is probably wanting in all sorts of ways). So, what could be simpler. Set up your own journal, appoint your own peers, and off you go.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

Well, so did I. But I didn't bother to look because I just assumed it would be an obvious "Coghill Special" and nobody would take any notice of it.

What I didn't realise was that (superficially) credible people would be fronted as being an "Editorial Board". Of course some of those are now beginning to distinctly look like quacks themselves.

The real problem is PERCEIVED credibility. Coghill is already being quoted as an expert all over the place by rabid newsmedia, the few objections to that consist of credible scientists pointing out that his work is unpublished and not peer reviewed. So as you say, he now short circuits that problem with vanity publishing under a veneer of "peer review". To my mind the scam has gone far enough. It'll be harder to stop once it is underway.
 
It's enlightening to note that you don't have to scratch this lot very deep at all to get at the real woo.

Roger came on as a straight scientist with all his lymphocyte cultures and his fancy electromagnetic instruments, but Cleopatra had him pegged early on when she homed in on the book about Atlantis and the link to the medium's web site (all that about necromancy, priceless....)

Another link is this whole woo stuff about vibrations and energy medicine. That's how the homoeopaths and the acupuncturists and all the no-touch gang like radionics and pranamonics and so on talk. It's all about these mysterious energies, homoeopathic remedies have energy in them that resonates at the frequency of the remedy and so on. Very close to Roger's stuff about vibrating energies of foods, and bad vibrations making you ill.

This guy isn't a cigarette paper removed from the homoeopaths and their mates, he just dresses it up better.

Rolfe.
 
Roger's hobby seems to be snowballing into an obsession of epic proportions. Publishing one's own journal? Talk about your vanity press.

How long before the Cogreslab bunch don the matching Nikes and drink the Kool-Aid?
 
One wonders if this new journal would be vulnerable to an Alan Sokal-type exercise...
 
Psiload said:
Roger's hobby seems to be snowballing into an obsession of epic proportions. Publishing one's own journal? Talk about your vanity press.

How long before the Cogreslab bunch don the matching Nikes and drink the Kool-Aid?
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Don't give him ideas! Next, it'll be "Coghill Cola" with added Melatonin!

Not, "Coke adds life", but "Coggycola protects against all forms of EM radiation"...!

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry...honestly!
 
Zombified said:
One wonders if this new journal would be vulnerable to an Alan Sokal-type exercise...
Click to expand...
How about the Harmoniser(tm) Lemon Juice Experiment?
 
Zombified said:
One wonders if this new journal would be vulnerable to an Alan Sokal-type exercise...
Click to expand...

Hmmm....!

(Pragmatist leans back in his chair with a big evil grin on his face...) :D
 
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