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

[Lew Helgeson <lewhelgeson@helge.com>]

Maybe Sixty Minutes might want to look at these data a do an expose' on
BEIR, EPA, etc. That would be a real switch from their normal broadcasts
about the nuclear industries, but it might be worth a test of their
interest in digging out the "dirt."

Lew Helgeson

At 04:51 PM 3/27/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>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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