The feeding frenzy over the misconduct charges against Dr. Robert Liburdy has gotten out of hand. The enemies of prudent policies towards EMF safety and the continuation of EMF health research are using the Liburdy affair to further their own agendas.
All the usual suspects have had their say: Junk journalists, rabid physicists and industry apologists.
But first, a few words about Liburdy. The case made by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) against him is complex and not easy to summarize, but two things are clear:
- (1) Liburdy has not withdrawn any of his scientific conclusions. He has retracted three graphs.
- (2) The Liburdy work that ORI has challenged is but a small part of the many lab studies on EMFs and calcium and, more importantly, only a footnote to the ongoing EMF-cancer debate.
Anyone who has followed this debate over the last 20 years knows that it turns on epidemiological studies showing that children and workers exposed to power line EMFs have higher than expected rates of leukemia. In fact, one of the reasons some scientists have trouble accepting that EMFs promote cancer is the lack of clear supporting data from laboratory experiments.
Science magazine ran a short item on the Liburdy affair in its July 2 issue and the matter receded into the background until Friday, July 23, when the San Francisco Chronicle put it on its front page. The Chronicle tried to make the connection between Liburdy's calcium work and cancer by noting that Liburdy's 1992 studies "were considered tantalizing evidence that electric and magnetic radiation could cause cancer." In the 28 paragraphs that followed, there was not a single word to back up this claim.
The next day, the New York Times took the story to a new low with a front page, above-the-fold, story headlined: DATA TYING CANCER TO ELECTRIC POWER FOUND TO BE FALSE. Reporter William Broad led with: "A federal investigation has concluded that a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. faked what had been considered crucial evidence of a tie between electric power lines and cancer. The disclosure appears to strengthen the case that electric power is safe."
A few paragraphs later and still on page 1, Broad offers the following quote from an unnamed federal investigator (presumably from ORI): "If he hadn't gotten these results, nobody would have paid any attention."
In the 33-paragraph story, Broad fails to offer a single word from a cancer researcher or a biologist or a biophysicist to back this claim -- or even to show that Liburdy's work is related to cancer. Instead, Broad offers some quotes from Dr. Robert Park, a lobbyist for the American Physical Society, who has turned his anti-EMF opinions into a crusade. Park did not miss this opportunity to strike a blow against EMF research. According to Broad, Park believes that, "Liburdy's deception was probably typical for the field."
Broad's story appeared in newspapers across the country that Saturday (July 24), including the front page of the Denver Post and the Providence Journal.
Broad failed to tell the readers of the Times that a few weeks ago, in mid-June, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) issued a report to the U.S. Congress which concluded that although there is only "weak" evidence for an EMF-cancer risk, there is a "consistent pattern of a small increased risk with increasing exposure." As a result, Dr. Kenneth Olden, the director of the NIEHS, advised the adoption of a policy of prudent avoidance, that is to use of low-cost methods to reduce exposure to EMFs.
In fact, the Times has never covered the NIEHS report. Nor has the Times ever said a word about the conclusions of a working group assembled by the NIEHS in June 1998, which found that the epidemiological evidence was strong enough to classify EMFs as "possible human carcinogens."
Broad, who worked for Science magazine before he moved to the Times many years ago, ignored the statement from Dr. Christopher Portier, the principal author of the NIEHS report, who told Science for its story on Liburdy that the Liburdy calcium studies had had "no impact whatsoever" on the NIEHS report's conclusions.
Today, July 27, the voice of industry has joined the chorus: They want Liburdy's head for an appetizer and the end of prudent avoidance for dessert. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health, an industry front group, seeks to close the book on the EMF health debate: We "now know" she writes, that it was all a "phony health risk." Whose medical opinion does Whelan cite? Robert Park's, of course.
Why do journalists like Broad and physicists like Park rail against any concerns over EMFs? (Some years ago, Broad compared concern over EMFs to claims on the "earthly presence of space aliens.") Hard to say, but the net effect is anti-science. Strange qualities for a science journalist and a lobbyist for science.
As we say in New York: Enough Already!
The only way to settle the EMF health debate is with good science -- not with junk journalism, industry propaganda and ideological agendas.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to post a public comment on the Trash Talk Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private comment to the Junkman.