Re: I'm get tired of it too, but...

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

Hi Bill,

OK. Name one. Note that BRER (Board of Rad Effects Research) the permanent
body forms the BEIR Committees, IS the NAS. Now what? So we move the
'independent adjudicator' to be the body responsible for determining
'scientific misconduct,' subject to court review. 

Note: the regulators keep the 'closed society' reports away from
'adjudication' by claiming that they can't be questioned in rulemakings; and
we can't question the 'review committees.' 

So, we need a Federal court 'adjudicator.' :-)

But your "Royal Society" doesn't consider the data any more than NAS. They'll
both fight limits based on John Gofman's nonsense, but their not 'objective.'
The members are anointed, just like NAS.

William Prestwich wrote:
> 
> Dear Jim,
>         Clearly this isn't really resolvable. 

Of course it is. It just needs attention. As you say, an adjudicator. But
don't say "it isn't true" unless you objectively test the facts.

>I do clearly remember a
> speaker we endured who insisted there was a government conspiracy to cover
> up the dangers from low levels of radiation. Whenever he was challenged by
> data in a publication he replied by saying that was "government science".

But was the data any good? What did your review conclude? 

Look at Lubin: gov't science. Howe. Matanoski. You can go on and on with real,
clear, cases. Right here on radsafe, Otto Raabe described how Mays and Lloyd
'cooked' the radium dial painter data to show a linear response, in BEIR III.
Gov't science. He said they didn't intentionally misrepresent the data, just a
matter of interpretation. I said, we just need to make the case and get it to
an adjudicator! :-)

Saying you 'endured' implies you didn't test the data. That's the Cohen case.
If it wasn't for the lone commitment of Bernie Cohen, to produce $millions for
a private study that 'gov't science' wouldn't do (e.g., terminated as
Frigerio's background radiation vs. cancer study); and then to continue
despite the unsupported attacks by the many 'gov't science' minions, is a
unique and unusual undertaking. Without that, all we would have is 'gov't
science' - by EPA - even the DOE radon program was killed in 1993-4, like the
dial painter program etc. - and the affected parties are well-trained re
questioning the funding agencies again - like RERF's response after DOE killed
the radium dial painter (Argonne CHR) program in '83. Like DOE suppressed the
Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study, both as research and data (the cancer cases as
statistically significant below the non-nuclear group, but that endpoint
wasn't included even in the 'summary' issued by press release; the high-dose
nuclear worker study; the Canadian TB fluoroscopy study; and many others. 

How many people have produced solid data that contradicts the 'gov't science,'
but have not continued, as Bernie has, to press for competent analysis and
fight 'gov't science' to achieve a scientifically valid result. (It is true,
of course, that we do not see people, Bernie or others, actually testing
Lubin's data/analysis. Of course many people just dismiss Wing's results as
bogus science, but don't really challenge it explicitly. Who funds those
assessments? (Or what scientist will risk his funding on that? I assume you
saw our report of a scientist that studied Bernie's data, esp his work with
Harvard epidemiologist Colditz, and Lubin et al criticisms, and said she
agreed with Cohen et al., but had been warned off publishing by her credible
peers who said 'who don't want to get caught in that political,
career-damaging, swamp.')

Bernie has persevered. Consider that this is even after the full weight of the
NAS, as the EPA-funded, BRER-formed, BEIR VI Committee, personally trashed
Bernie, with his work dismissed in a couple of paragraphs in an Appendix, and
outright in the body (as though there were an analysis backing it up). This
included a figure that substantially misrepresented the data! As Mossman
showed! Thrown off BEIR VII, and now he has to work on recovering his career.
(And where does an objection to BEIR VI go after-the-fact? Nowhere. Just like
BEIR V. They simply ignore/suppress the data - Bernie's data AND the many
other confirmatory studies - and it's unchallenged. Gov't science.)

As a footnote: I'm always intrigued by the dichotomy of the 'political'
response: "You can't do/say that..." about a program/organization/project; and
then some small thing "breaks" and suddenly the same people are ripping the
org apart for... all the terrible things we know about bureaucracies and
criminal enterprises: 'the police,' the Japanese economy in the '80s, NASA
science & technology (every decade :-), etc. etc. Consider the Berlin wall...
:-)  

Thanks.

Regards, Jim
muckerheide@mediaone.net
========================

>         We did have an incident here in which a government body attempted
> to impose a ridiculously low regulatory limit. There was a full and frank
> discussion, even if I remember correctly involving the Royal Society as an
> independant body. The consequences were that the suggested limit was
> withdrawn.
>         It would seem to me that the Academy of Sciences would be a
> similar objective body to which you could take your case. The charges you
> are making are extremely serious to anyone who truly believes in
> science. Your references notwithstanding, I think that an independent
> adjudicator is called for.
> Sincerely,
> Bill Prestwich
> McMaster University
> Hamilton, Ontario
> prestwic@mcmaster.ca
> 
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