Science and Pseudo-Science

At the Intersection of Zionism and Social Justice

By Michael Howard | Dissident Voice | March 25, 2016

In her oily, cringe-inducing and totally predictable speech to AIPAC on March 21, Hillary Clinton argued that, since (according to her) “anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world… we must repudiate all efforts to malign, isolate and undermine Israel and the Jewish people.” In other words, we must do what we can to shut down any legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. A reliable means of doing so is to conflate said criticism with anti-Semitism and thus vilify the critic in question. This particular strategy has been perfected and institutionalized for decades, and was perhaps best deconstructed by Norman Finkelstein in “The Holocaust Industry.”

By dismissing BDS advocates as irrational, Jew-hating troublemakers, Hillary Clinton, the great bastion of liberalism and progress, makes common cause with the jingoist far right (where she actually belongs). But she also makes common cause with a good chunk of US academia, where criticism of Israel and its atrocities is often met with censorship and intimidation. In a comprehensive report on the subject, Palestine Legal details the extent of the suppression: “From January 2014 through June 2015, Palestine Legal interviewed hundreds of students, academics and community activists who reported being censored, punished, subjected to disciplinary proceedings, questioned, threatened, or falsely accused of anti-Semitism or supporting terrorism for their speech in support of Palestinian rights or criticism of Israeli policies.”

Needless to say, this is a gross violation of First Amendment rights, and it needs to be challenged at every opportunity. The university system is based on the principles of free inquiry and unfettered discourse; absent the open exchange of conflicting ideas and opinions, academia is essentially worthless. When certain viewpoints are institutionally favored, colleges cease to be places of learning and instead become places of indoctrination. Who could desire such a circumstance? Well, apart from authoritarians, fascists, religious fanatics (including Zionists) and Hillary Clinton, it’s becoming more and more apparent that “liberal” student activists do.

On college campuses across the country, students are mobilizing and protesting against institutionalized discrimination. Few on the left would argue that this is a negative development. After all, if nothing else these students are contesting authority—a noble and worthy exercise in itself. However, what do we say when fundamental democratic values like free speech are subordinated to an ideology? This is the precarious situation in which many student activists currently find themselves. It’s bizarre: presumably, the students protesting at places like Yale and the University of Missouri (to take two high-profile examples from last year) would stand with the BDS activists who are targeted and censored by pro-Israel forces. And yet these same students—exhibiting a degree of schizophrenia—would have their own ideological opponents treated in the same fashion.

Take a recent incident. At Emory College in Atlanta, some students used chalk to write “Trump 2016”—and other similarly anodyne messages—throughout the campus. Curiously (or perhaps not at this point), controversy erupted when a number of students declared that they felt physically threatened by the chalk drawings, which were considered by some to be acts of violence. “I thought we were having a KKK rally on campus,” one student reportedly told the Daily Beast. She “legitimately feared for [her] life.” Another student said that “some of us were expecting shootings” and thus “feared walking alone.” They demanded that the Emory administration identify the perpetrators, presumably so some sort of disciplinary action could take place—perhaps a public flogging. When the administration responded with a tepid defense of the anonymous chalkers’ right to free speech, the offended shifted their ire onto the college itself, for failing to provide an adequate safe space. All of which is par for the course by now.

So here we have a conflation of Donald Trump supporters with homicidal white supremacists; of political campaigning with physical violence. This is not dissimilar to the conflation of BDS with anti-Semitism, which plagues Palestinian rights activists everywhere. In fact, it’s closer to the profoundly stupid idea that all Muslims endorse terrorism—a notion that the offended students at Emory surely find abhorrent. There is one obvious distinction that must be made: the censorship of BDS on college campuses comes from the top, while the attempted censorship of Donald Trump supporters comes from the comparatively impotent student body. The former case is a much graver threat to free speech, but that is not an excuse to ignore the latter. Soon enough the student body will hold positions of authority.

ESP seems to be a trait common to advocates of censorship. For example, in a recent pro-Israel memo from the Regents of the University of California, it is contended that “opposition to Zionism often is expressed in ways that are not simply statements of disagreement over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture.” Translation: the mind readers at the Regents of the University of California can tell when critics of Israel are actually rabid Jew-haters, and they will adjudicate such cases accordingly. Similarly, the would-be student censors use their clairvoyance to judge when an opinion they don’t like is motivated by race hatred or some other form of bigotry. Support for Donald Trump, as we have already seen, implies a desire to kill minorities. It is therefore no different from real physical violence.

What would happen if an entire college was founded on this line of thinking? A recent petition drawn up by some student activists at Western Washington University spells it out for us. The group calls themselves the Student Assembly for Power and Liberation, which is more than a little ominous-sounding. In their own words: “We are a growing group of students from a multitude of communities and disciplines around campus combatting the systemic oppression embedded within our society that is inevitably upheld through this institution, as it was created to uphold white supremacy at its core.”

Note the aggressively bureaucratic language (the grammar of which unravels throughout the petition). Prolixity of this sort is often employed by postmodernist academics—in whose tradition these students are working—for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Noam Chomsky once argued that, in general, postmodernism “allows people to take a radical stance—more radical than thou—but to be completely dissociated from anything that’s happening, for many reasons. One reason is nobody can understand a word they’re saying. So they’re already dissociated. It’s kind of like a private lingo.”

Obviously, Michel Foucault these kids are not, but the postmodernist influence is plain to see. It’s like that smug kid in your Creative Writing workshop whose stories are all cheap Bukowski imitations. They don’t really have any idea what they’re doing, but they’re busting with self-satisfaction nevertheless.

What these students want, and what their petition is meant to facilitate, is the creation of a brand new college: the College of Power and Liberation. The function of this hypothetical college would be the “development of academic programs that are committed to social justice.” The first step in realizing this goal is “a cluster hire of ten tenure-track faculty to teach at the college.” Fair enough. However, there is something of a catch: “the Student Assembly for Power and Liberation will have direct input and decision-making power over the hiring of faculty for the college.”

That’s right—the professors at the College of Power and Liberation are to be hired by the students attending that college. The “power,” then, is to reside entirely in the hands of the student body. Naturally, they also reserve the right to take “disciplinary action” against “everyone in a teaching position within the university.” And it gets weirder. Demanded in part three of the petition is “the creation and implementation of a 15 persxn [sic] paid student committee, The Office for Social Transformation.”

The misspelling of “person” here is deliberate, as is the discontinuous misspelling of “history” (hxstory) later on. The implication is that these nouns are gendered (person, history) and thus microaggressive residue of an outmoded patriarchal system of thought. Therefore they have been changed. This, I suppose, is an example of the “de-colonial work” for which the College of Power needs “an annually dedicated revenue of $45,000.”

The Office for Social Transformation doesn’t just sound Orwellian—it quite literally is. Here is its express purpose: “to monitor, document, and archive all racist, anti-black, transphobic, cissexist, misogynistic, ablest, homophobic, islamophobic, xenophobic, anti-semitism [sic], and otherwise oppressive behavior on campus.” This oppressive behavior, the petition continues, is regularly found “in faculty curriculum.” By that I assume they mean curriculum including books with controversial subject matter, for instance the novels of James Baldwin and Mark Twain. So much for the English professors who wish to teach the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”—a terribly oppressive book.

The petition does not explicitly propose thought crime legislation, but it doesn’t rule it out either. One inevitably wonders about the criteria by which a person’s behavior is judged oppressive (i.e., punishable). For example, what becomes of the student or faculty member who is caught reading Kipling? Surely owning a copy of The Cantos is grounds for disciplinary action—Ezra Pound was a bona fide fascist. Hemingway was anti-Semitic and homophobic: it follows that The Sun Also Rises is beyond the pale. Tolstoy abused his wife, and so reading War and Peace implies an endorsement of misogyny.

Simone de Beauvoir once appealed to the censors of her time: “Must we burn [the Marquis de] Sade?” Indeed we must—and most others, for that matter.

Never fear, though: the College of Power and Liberation has a “three-strike disciplinary system that corresponds to citations that are processed.” Thank heavens for the three-strike disciplinary system, without which people might be fired and expelled unreasonably.

You get the picture. The mini despots comprising the so-called Student Assembly for Power and Liberation are concerned very much with Power and very little with Liberation. Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian microcosm of a state, very far removed from reality, in which power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few self-righteous 20-somethings with delusions of grandeur. Because the First Amendment is overrated anyway.

The Holocaust Industry would be proud. And that’s what makes all of this so distressing. If so-called liberal student activists believe in censorship (and many of them evidently do), who can we rely on to challenge the unconstitutional suppression of BDS activism on college campuses? It necessarily devolves into a battle of hypocrites: the right rationalizes their brand of censorship while condemning the left’s, and vice versa. The reality is that both need to be condemned, because both represent explicit attacks on basic democratic principles. The crucial difference, I suppose, is that the Zionists (who know exactly what they’re doing) must be fought, while the overzealous students (who don’t) need merely to be educated. We can and should do both at once.

Michael Howard is a freelance writer from Buffalo, NY. He can be reached at mwhowie@yahoo.com .

March 26, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | AIPAC, Emory College, Hillary Clinton, Human rights, United States, University of California, Zionism | Leave a comment

WaPo slams Trump on climate because nuke weapon explosion is ‘hypothetical’

Junk Science | March 23, 2016

“The problem with this response is that man-made climate change is real and happening now. The detonation of a nuclear bomb is a hypothetical.”

From the WaPo :

March 26, 2016 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science | Donald Trump, United States, Washington Post | Leave a comment

It’s Not Just Cancer! Radiation, Genomic Instability and Heritable Genetic Damage

By Chris Busby | CounterPunch | March 18, 2016

Those who fear the effects of radiation always focus on cancer. But the most frightening and serious consequences of radiation are genetic.

Cancer is just one small bleak reflection, a flash of cold light from a facet of the iceberg of genetic damage to life on Earth constructed from human folly, power-lust and stupidity.

Cancer is a genetic disease expressed at the cellular level. But genetic effects are transmitted across the generations.

It was Herman Joseph Muller, an American scientist, who discovered the most serious effects of ionizing radiation – hereditary defects in the descendants of exposed parents – in the 1920s. He exposed fruit flies – drosophila – to X-rays and found malformations and other disorders in the following generations.

He concluded from his investigations that low dose exposure, and therefore even natural background radiation, is mutagenic and there is no harmless dose range for heritable effects or for cancer induction. His work was honoured by the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1946.

In the 1950s Muller warned about the effects on the human genetic pool caused by the production of low level radioactive contamination from atmospheric tests. I have his original 1950 report, which is a rare item now.

Muller, as a famous expert in radiation, was designated as a speaker at the Conference, ‘Atoms for Peace’ in Geneva in 1955 where the large scale use of nuclear energy (too cheap to meter) was announced by President Eisenhower. But when the organisers became aware that Muller had warned about the deterioration of the human gene pool by the contamination of the planet from the weapon test fallout, his invitation was cancelled.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The protective legislation of western governments does, of course, concede that radiation has such genetic effects. The laws regulating exposure are based on the risk model of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the ICRP.

The rules say that no one is allowed to receive more than 1mSv of dose in a year from man-made activities. The ICRP’s scientific model for heritable effects is based on mice; this is because ICRP states that there is no evidence that radiation causes any heritable effects in humans.

The dose required to double the risk of heritable damage according to the ICRP is more than 1000mSv. This reliance on mice has followed from the studies of the offspring of those who were present in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Japanese/ US Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC).

These studies were begun in 1952 and assembled groups of people in the bombed cities to compare cancer rates and also birth outcomes in those exposed at different levels according to their distance from the position of the bomb detonation, the hypocentre. The entire citadel of radiation risk is built upon this ABCC rock.

But the rock was constructed with smoke and mirrors and everything about the epidemiology is false. There have been a number of criticisms of the A-Bomb Lifespan Studies of cancer: it was a survivor population, doses were external, residual contamination was ignored, it began seven years after the event, the original zero dose control group was abandoned as being “too healthy”, and many others.

But we are concerned here with the heritable effects, the birth defects, the congenital malformations, the miscarriages and stillbirths. The problem here is that for heritable damage effects to show up, there have to be births. As you increase the exposures to radiation, you quickly obtain sterility and there are no pregnancies. We found this in the nuclear test veterans.

Then at lower doses, damaged sperm results in damaged foetuses and miscarriages. When both mother and father are exposed, there are miscarriages and stillbirths before you see any birth defects. So the dose response relation is not linear. At the higher doses there are no effects. The effects all appear at the lowest doses.

Bad epidemiology is easily manipulated

As far as the ABCC studies are concerned, there is another serious (and I would say dishonest) error in the epidemiology. Those people discarded their control population in favour of using the low dose group as a control.

This is such bad epidemiology that it should leave any honest reviewer breathless. But there were no reviewers. Or at least no-one seemed to care. Perhaps they didn’t dig deeply enough. In passing, the same method is now being used to assess risk in the huge INWORKS nuclear worker studies and no-one has raised this point there either.

Anyway, the ABCC scientists in charge of the genetic studies found the same levels of adverse birth outcomes in their exposed and their control groups, and concluded that there was no effect from the radiation.

Based on this nonsense, ICRP writes in their latest 2007 risk model, ICRP103, Appendix B.2.01, that “Radiation induced heritable disease has not been demonstrated in human populations.”

But it has. If we move away from this USA controlled, nuclear military complex controlled A-Bomb study and look in the real world we find that Muller was right to be worried. The radioactive contamination of the planet has killed tens of millions of babies, caused a huge increase in infertility, and increased the genetic burden of the human race and life on earth.

And now the truth is out!

In January of this year Prof. Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, of the University of Bremen, Dr Sebastian Pflugbeil of the German Society for Radioprotection and I published a Special Topic paper in the prestigious peer-review journal Environmental Health and Toxicology. The title is: Genetic Radiation Risks – a neglected topic in the Low Dose debate.

In this paper we collected together all the evidence which has been published outside the single Japanese ABCC study in order to calculate the true genetic effects of radiation exposure. The outcome was sobering, but not unexpected.

Using evidence ranging from Chernobyl to the nuclear Test Veterans to the offspring of radiographers we showed clearly that a dose of 1mSv from internal contamination was able to cause a 50% increase in congenital malformations. This identifies an error in the ICRP model and in the current legislation of a factor of 1,000. And we write this down. The conclusion of the paper states:

Genetically induced malformations, cancers, and numerous other health effects in the children of populations who were exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation have been unequivocally demonstrated in scientific investigations.

Using data from Chernobyl effects we find a new Excess Relative Risk (ERR) for Congenital malformations of 0.5 per mSv at 1mSv falling to 0.1 per mSv at 10mSv exposure and thereafter remaining roughly constant. This is for mixed fission products as defined though external exposure to Cs-137.

Results show that current radiation risk models fail to predict or explain the many observations and should be abandoned. Further research and analysis of previous data is suggested, but prior assumptions of linear dose response, assumptions that internal exposures can be modelled using external risk factors, that chronic and acute exposures give comparable risks and finally dependence on interpretations of the high dose ABCC studies are all seen to be unsafe procedures.

Radiation causes genomic instability

Our paper is available on the web as a free download, so you can see what we wrote and follow up the 80 or so references we used to construct the case.

Most of the evidence is from effects reported in countries contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, not only in Belarus and Ukraine but in wider Europe where doses were less than 1mSv. Other evidence we referred to was from the offspring of the nuclear test veterans.

In a study I published in 2014 of the offspring of members of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA) we saw a 9-fold excess of congenital disease in the children but also, and unexpectedly, an eight-fold excess in the grandchildren. This raises a new and frightening spectre not anticipated by Herman Muller.

In the last 15 years it has become clear that radiation causes genomic instability: experiments in the laboratory and animal studies show that radiation exposure throws some kind of genetic switch which causes a non-specific increase in general mutation rates.

Up until these genomic instability discoveries it was thought that genetic processes followed the laws of Gregor Mendel: there were specific dominant and recessive gene mutations that were passed down the generations and became diluted through a binomial process as offspring married away.

But radiation scientists and cancer researchers could not square the background mutation rate with the increased risks of cancer with age: the numbers didn’t fit. The discovery of the genomic instability process was the answer to the puzzle: it introduces enough random mutations to explain the observations.

It is this that supplies the horrifying explanation for the continuing high risk of birth defects in Fallujah and other areas where the exposures occurred ten to twenty years ago. Similar several generation effects have been seen in animals from Chernobyl.

Neonatal mortality in the nuclear bomb era

So where does that leave us? What can we do with this? What can we conclude? How can this change anything? Let’s start by looking at the effects of the biggest single injection of these radioactive contaminants, the atmospheric weapons tests of the period 1952 to 1963.

If these caused increases in birth defects and genetic damage we should see something in the data. We do. The results are chilling. If babies are damaged they die at or shortly before birth. This will show up in the vital statistics data of any country which collects and publishes it.

Busby-fig1

In Fig 1 (above right) I show a graph of the first day (neonatal) mortality rates in the USA from 1936 to 1985. You can see that as social conditions improved there was a fall in the rates between the beginning and end of the period, and we can obtain this by calculating what the background should have been using a statistical process called regression.

The expected backgound is shown as a thin blue line. Also superimposed is the concentration of Strontium-90 in milk (in red) and its concentration in the bones of dead infants (in blue). The graph shows first day neonatal mortality in the USA; it is taken from a paper by Canadian paediatrician Robin Whyte (woman) in the British Medical Journal in 1992. This paper shows the same effect in neonatal (1 month) mortality and stillbirths in the USA and also the United Kingdom. The doses from the Strontium-90 were less than 0.5mSv.

This is in line with what we found in our paper from Chernobyl and the other examples of human exposures. The issue was first raised by the late Prof Ernest Sternglass, one of the first of the radiation warrior-scientists and a friend of mine. The cover-ups and denials of these effects are part of the biggest public health scandal in human history.

It continues and has come to a venue near you: our study of Hinkley Point showed significant increased infant mortality downwind of the plant at Burnham on Sea as I wrote in The Ecologist.

It’s official – genetic damage in children is an indicator of harmful exposures to the father

As to what we can do with this new peer-reviewed evidence we can (and we shall) put it before the Nuclear Test Veterans case in the Pensions Appeals hearings in the Royal Courts of Justice which is tabled for three weeks from June 14th 2016 before a tribunal headed by high court judge Sir Nicholas Blake.

I represent two of the appellants in this hearing and will bring in the genetic damage in the children and grandchildren as evidence of genetic damage in the father.

We are calling Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, the author of the genetic paper, as one expert witness; the judge has conceded that genetic damage in the children is an indicator of harmful exposures to the father. He has made a disclosure order to the University of Dundee to release the veteran questionnaires. They have.

Finally, I must share with you a window into the mind-set of the false scientists who work for the military and nuclear operation. As the fallout Strontium-90 built up in milk and in childrens’ bones and was being measured, they renamed the units of contamination, (picoCuries Sr-90 per gram of Calcium) ‘Sunshine Units’.

Can you imagine? I would ship them all to Nuremberg for that alone.

Dr Chris Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Riskand the author of Uranium and Health – The Health Effects of Exposure to Uranium and Uranium Weapons Fallout (Documents of the ECRR 2010 No 2, Brussels, 2010). For details and current CV see chrisbusbyexposed.org. For accounts of his work see greenaudit.org, llrc.org and nuclearjustice.org.

March 19, 2016 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Nuclear Power, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Chernobyl, Fallujah, Hinkley Point, UK, United States | Leave a comment

“Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis

Retraction Watch – March 16, 2016

John Ioannidis is perhaps best known for a 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” One of the most highly cited researchers in the world, Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford, has built a career in the field of meta-research. Earlier this month, he published a heartfelt and provocative essay in the the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology titled “Evidence-Based Medicine Has Been Hijacked: A Report to David Sackett.” In it, he carries on a conversation begun in 2004 with Sackett, who died last May and was widely considered the father of evidence-based medicine. We asked Ioannidis to expand on his comments in the essay, including why he believes he is a “failure.”

Retraction Watch: You write that as evidence-based medicine “became more influential, it was also hijacked to serve agendas different from what it originally aimed for.” Can you elaborate?

John Ioannidis: As I describe in the paper, “evidence-based medicine” has become a very common term that is misused and abused by eminence-based experts and conflicted stakeholders who want to support their views and their products, without caring much about the integrity, transparency, and unbiasedness of science.

RW: You also write that evidence-based medicine “still remains an unmet goal, worthy to be attained.” Can you explain further?

JI: The commentary that I wrote gives a personal confession perspective on whether evidence-based medicine currently fulfills the wonderful definition that David Sackett came up with: “integrating individual clinical expertise with the best external evidence”. This is a goal that is clearly worthy to be attained, but, in my view, I don’t see that this has happened yet. Each of us may ponder whether the goal has been attained. I suspect that many/most will agree that we still have a lot of work to do.

RW: You describe yourself as a “failure.” What do you mean?

JI: Well, I still know next to nothing, even though I am always struggling to obtain more solid evidence and even though I always want to learn more. If you add what are probably over a thousand rejections (of papers, grant proposals, nominations, and other sorrowful academic paraphernalia) during my career to-date, I think I can qualify for a solid failure. Nevertheless, I still greatly enjoy my work in science and in evidence-based medicine.

RW: You say that your first grant, which you applied for 17 years ago, was “not even rejected.” Tell us about that grant.

JI: It was a randomized controlled trial of antibiotics versus placebo for acute sinusitis. Hundreds of millions of people were treated with antibiotics without good evidence back then, and hundreds of millions of people continue to be treated with antibiotics even nowadays even though most of them would not need antibiotics. I sent in the application to a public funding agency, but have not heard back yet. Probably they felt that requesting funding for a randomized trial and not going to the industry for such funds was a joke. Many public funding agencies are accustomed to funding only research that clearly has no direct relevance to important, real-life questions, so perhaps they didn’t know where to place my application.

RW: You write that clinical evidence is “becoming an industry advertisement tool” and that “much ‘basic’ science [is] becoming an annex to Las Vegas casinos.” Provocative — what do you mean?

JI: Since clinical research that can generate useful clinical evidence has fallen off the radar screen of many/most public funders, it is largely left up to the industry to support it. The sales and marketing departments in most companies are more powerful than their R&D departments. Hence, the design, conduct, reporting, and dissemination of this clinical evidence becomes an advertisement tool. As for “basic” research, as I explain in the paper, the current system favors PIs who make a primary focus of their career how to absorb more money. Success in obtaining (more) funding in a fiercely competitive world is what counts the most. Given that much “basic” research is justifiably unpredictable in terms of its yield, we are encouraging aggressive gamblers. Unfortunately, it is not gambling for getting major, high-risk discoveries (which would have been nice), it is gambling for simply getting more money.

RW: Studying what ails science doesn’t make you popular with other researchers — until they want to publish with you, of course, as you point out in your piece. But those criticisms can also lump you in with those that you describe as “pseudo-scientists and dogmatists… trying to exploit individuals and populations and attack science.” How do you differentiate your own work?

JI: I definitely can’t complain for lack of popularity. I feel privileged to have worked with thousands of other scientists over the years and to have learnt from them. It is not possible to make everybody happy all the time, but the work of my team is aiming to protect science, defend the scientific method, question dogma, and enhance the capability and efficiency of research methodology and research practices. In this regard, it is at the very opposite pole than those who want to attack science, question the scientific method and promote dogmas.

RW: You’re worried that Cochrane Collaboration reviews — the apex of evidence-based medicine — “may cause harm by giving credibility to biased studies of vested interests through otherwise respected systematic reviews.” Why, and what’s the alternative?

JI: A systematic review that combines biased pieces of evidence may unfortunately give another seal of authority to that biased evidence. Systematic reviews may sometimes be most helpful if, instead of focusing on the summary of the evidence, highlight the biases that are involved and what needs to be done to remedy the state-of-the-evidence in the given field. This often requires a bird’s eye view where hundreds and thousands of systematic reviews and meta-analyses are examined, because then the patterns of bias are much easier to discern as they apply across diverse topics in the same or multiple disciplines. Much of the time, the solution is that, instead of waiting to piece together fragments of biased evidence retrospectively after the fact, one needs to act pre-emptively and make sure that the evidence to be produced will be clinically meaningful and unbiased, to the extent possible. Meta-analyses should become primary research, where studies are designed with the explicit anticipation that they are part of an overarching planned cumulative meta-analysis.

RW: What are your hopes for evidence-based medicine moving forward?

JI: The right ideas are there, and there are many superb scientists and clinicians who want to do the right thing, so I am always cautiously hopeful. We should keep trying.

RW: The essay is really personal and full of interesting stories. We’d like to end with a quote from when he was an early career researcher questioning entrenched research attitudes in Europe:

A senior professor of cardiology told a friend of mine that I should not be too outspoken, otherwise Albanian hit men may strangle me in my office. I replied that they should make sure to get correct instructions to my office – turn left when they come up the stairs. I would feel remorse, if the assassins entered the wrong office and strangled the wrong person.

March 19, 2016 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israeli Society in the 21st Century

Review by Jim Miles | Palestine Chronicle | February 12, 2016

(Israeli Society in the 21st Century – Immigration, Inequality, and Religious Conflict. Calvin Goldscheider. Brandeis University Press, Waltham , Massachusetts. 2015.)

This work intrigued me as it is obviously supportive of the Israeli position in the Middle East and at a quick glance would illuminate something new about the state of Israel and the State of Israel. Unfortunately it does neither.

Calvin Goldscheider is a professor of sociology at Brown University, and unfortunately sociology from my experience is probably the weakest of the social sciences, is not a science at all really, and ranks beneath both political ‘science’ and economics as fields of rational study. My definition of sociology is that it is the art of taking something that could be explained through common sense and common language and transforming it into something pseudo-scientifically profound. This is done through the use of a particular lexicon, and the lengthy creation of repetitious and supposedly neutral academic explanations that are not academically tested.

Having said that it can be assumed that I would be a ‘hostile’ reviewer, but rather I was simply bored – until I arrived at the end where Goldscheider concludes “our exploration of emerging Israeli society by unpacking the influence of external factors.”

Boredom

The boredom derives directly from Goldscheider’s methodology. As he states himself in the preface “The evidence presented in this book is primarily based on the official statistics of Israel located in the Statistical Abstracts of Israel of 2013 and 2014.” In a brief Appendix he reiterates this, saying “I have relied on the excellent statistical materials presented in yearbooks of the Central Bureau of Statistics [named above].”

In essence, he did nothing scientific, no original research, and performed only two tasks: first, writing out longhand all the statistics that would have been way better presented in graphic form (graphs of some kind); and secondly, writing out very poor analysis in lengthy terms that could have all been done with more basic language annotations under each graph.

The statistical information is obviously very comprehensive and covers many if not most aspects of life in Israel. The sociological lexicon makes any explanation of those statistics repetitive and lacking in common sense. Part of the effect of the sociological lexicon is the sterilization of the information, making it dispassionate, and a facade of intellectual rigor making the ordinary complex.

For example, Goldscheider writes,

“Vulnerability among Arab Israelis stems from the fact that segregations intensifies and magnifies any economic setback and builds deprivations structurally into the socioeconomic environment. The costs of segregation are exacerbated by the economic dependency of Arab Israelis.”

A rather fancy set of terms that seems to say that Arab Israelis are subject to racism. The definition is reiterated on the next page,

“Residential segregation is a structural condition, making deprived communities more likely; combined with social class disadvantage, ethnic segregation concentrates income deprivation in small areas and generates structural discrimination.”

It doesn’t sound like racism, doesn’t look like racism, but if translated into common English, it is racism with all that implies for laws, policing, and opportunities.

Narratives, Lies, and Mythology…

Occasionally within the writing there are short moments of lies, sterilized commentary, and the traditional Israeli narrative. They are not truly surprising but do allow glimpses of how the Israeli narrative can be carried forward so easily in a pseudo-scientific manner:

(1)The Jewish migrants were “working in agriculture to develop barren wastelands.” Not true.

(2) In 1948, “there was an exodus of Arab residents…as territorial control was transferred ….” A good sterilized narrative.

(3) The Jewish migrant is a “fact that Jews returning to the state of Israel descended from ancestors who had not lived there for almost 2,000 years.” Essentially mythological without the scientific proof that a ‘science’ should demand.

(4) “…administered territories [do not imply] long term possession or control…since there was a clear recognition that control was “administrative,” not ideological.” This goes against all historical records in particular from Zionists wanting all of Eretz Israel for their homeland.

(5) Further, “The control is political and firmly anchored in history, religion, and legitimacy.” Yes, political, but mainly military, and also economic. Yes, anchored in history, the history of military wars against the Arab indigenous populations. Legitimacy is part of the religious narrative of which the author says the territory is “named by its Hebrew-Judaic origins is part of a gift of God to the Jewish people.” This could lead to many arguments about the biblical legitimacy, as it does internally within Israeli Jews, and externally.

But accepted that it is “god given” could it not also be “god taken?” Are the current possessors of the land living the will of a just and peaceful god or a god of retribution and violence?

(6) Finally – but not completely – the author mentions “forays from Israel to population centers in Gaza have become routine and costly in human lives, property, economic growth, and trust between neighbors.” Forays!! Umm, perhaps full out military invasions with aerial support from Apache helicopters and fighter jets. Costly – obviously – but trust? The latter is not even to be considered between Israel and Gaza as witnesses from the manner in which Gaza has been made into an open air prison/concentration camp.

Either way, not good.

Even if you are an ardent Jewish Zionist supporter, this is not a good read. It would be much better to go to the Israeli statistical records that are referenced and simply read them. It will save much time and agony from trying to read through a sociological lexicon that speaks volumes but says little.

Along with the poor writing, Israeli Society in the 21st Century provides poor analysis and sterilizes the Israeli narrative of occupation and settlement, not surprising considering its origins.

– Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

March 12, 2016 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Brown University, Calvin Goldscheider | Leave a comment

Is Fukushima’s nuclear nightmare over? Don’t count on it

By Christopher Busby – RT – March 12, 2016

On the 5th Anniversary of the catastrophe, Prof Geraldine Thomas, the nuclear industry’s new public relations star, walked through the abandoned town of Ohkuma inside the Fukushima exclusion zone with BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

Thomas was described as “one of Britain’s leading experts on the health effects of radiation”. She is of the opinion that there is no danger and the Japanese refugees can come back and live there in the “zone”. Her main concern seemed to be how untidy it all was: “Left to rack and ruin,” she complained, sadly.

At one point, Rupert pulled out his Geiger counter and read the dose: 3 microSieverts per hour. “How much radiation would it give in a year to people who came back here,” he asked. Thomas replied: “About an extra milliSievert a year, which is not much considering you get 2mSv a year from natural background”.

“The long term impact on your health would be absolutely nothing.”

Now anyone with a calculator can easily multiply 3 microSieverts (3 x 10-6 Sv) by 24 hours and 365 days. The answer comes out to be 26 mSv (0.026Sv), not “about 1mSv” as the “leading expert on the health effects of radiation” reported.

I must personally ask if Gerry Thomas is a reliable expert; her CV shows she has published almost nothing in the way of original research, so we must ask how it is the BBC has taken her seriously.

This recalled the day the first reactor exploded in 2011. I was in London, and the BBC asked me to come into the studio and comment. Also present was a nuclear industry apologist, Dr Ian Fells. Like Geraldine Thomas he seemed unconcerned about the radiation: the main problem for him was that the lifts would not work. People would have to climb stairs, he complained.

I said then on that first day that this was a serious accident like Chernobyl, but he and everybody who followed him told the viewers that it was no problem, nothing like Chernobyl.

Some months later, looking back, it became clear I was correct on every point, but I never was invited back to the BBC. I visited Japan, took sophisticated measuring equipment, obtained vehicle air filters, spoke to the Japanese people and advised them to take Calcium tablets to block the Strontium-90.

My vehicle air filter measurements showed clearly that large areas of north east Japan were seriously contaminated – including Tokyo. This was too much for the nuclear industry: I was attacked in the Guardian newspaper by pro-nuclear George Monbiot in an attempt to destroy my credibility. One other attacker was Geraldine Thomas. What she said then was as madly incorrect then as what she is saying now. But the Guardian would not let me respond.

The important evidence for me in the recent BBC clip is the measurement of dose given by Rupert’s Geiger counter: 3microSieverts per hour (3Sv/h). Normal background in Japan (I know, I measured it there) is about 0.1Sv/h. So in terms of external radiation, Ruperts’s measurement gave 30 times normal background.

Is this a problem for human health? You bet it is. The question no-one asked is what is causing the excess dose? The answer is easy: radioactive contamination, principally of Caesium-137. On the basis of well-known physics relationships we can say that 3Sv/h at 1m above ground represents a surface contamination of about 900,000Bq per square metre of Cs-137. That is, 900,000 disintegrations per second in one square metre of surface: and note that they were standing on a tarmac road which appeared to be clean. And this is 5 years after the explosions. The material is everywhere, and it is in the form of dust particles which can be inhaled; invisible sparkling fairy-dust that kills hang in the air above such measurements.

The particles are not just of Caesium-137. They contain other long lived radioactivity, Strontium-90, Plutonium 239, Uranium-235, Uranium 238, Radium-226, Polonium-210, Lead-210, Tritium, isotopes of Rhodium, Ruthenium, Iodine, Cerium, Cobalt 60. The list is long.

The UN definition of ‘radioactively contaminated land’ is 37,000Bq/square meter, and so, on the basis of the measurement made by the BBC reporter, the town of Ohkuma in the Fukushima zone (and we assume everywhere else in the zone) is still, five years after the incident, more than 20 times the level where the UN would, and the Soviets did, step in and control the population.

But the Japanese government wants to send the people back there. It is bribing them with money and housing assistance. It is saying, like Gerry Thomas, there is no danger. And the BBC is giving this misdirection a credible platform. The argument is based on the current radiation risk model of the International Commission on Radiological Protection the ICRP.

Last month, my German colleagues and I published a scientific paper [2] in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Health and Toxicology. It uses real-world data from those exposed to the same substances that were released by Fukushima to show that the ICRP model is wrong by 1,000 times or more. This is a game-changing piece of research. But were we asked to appear on the BBC, or anywhere else? No. What do our findings and calculations suggest will have happened in the five years since the explosions and into the future? Let’s take a look at what has happened since 2011.

The reactors are still uncontrolled five years after the explosions and continue to release their radioactive contents to the environment despite all attempts to prevent this. Concerning the melted fuel, there is no way to assess the condition or specific whereabouts of the fuel though it is clearly out of the box and in the ground.

Meanwhile, robots fail at the extremely high radiation levels found; ground water flowing through the plant is becoming contaminated and is being pumped into storage tanks for treatment; high radiation levels and debris have delayed the removal of spent fuel from numbers 1, 2 and 3 reactor buildings. TEPCO plans to remove debris from reactor 3 and this work has begun. Then they are hoping to remove the fuel rods out of reactors 1 and 2 by 2020 and the work on removing debris from these 2 reactors has not begun yet.

Much of the radioactivity goes into the sea, where it travels several hundreds of km. up and down the coast, destroying sea life and contaminating intertidal sediment. The radionuclides bind to fine sediment and concentrate in river estuaries and tidal areas like Tokyo Bay. Here the particles are re-suspended and brought ashore to be inhaled by those living within 1km of the coast.

From work done by my group for the Irish government on the contaminated Irish Sea we know that this exposure will increase the rate of cancer in the coastal inhabitants by about 30 percent.

The releases have not been stopped despite huge amounts of work, thought and action. The treated water is still highly radioactive and cannot yet be released.

That is a real problem on site with three heavy spent fuel pools still full and largely inaccessible. Collapse of the buildings would lead to coolant loss and a fire or even an explosion releasing huge amounts of radioactivity. So this is one nightmare scenario: Son of Fukushima. A solid wall at the port side may have slowed the water down but diverting the water may cause problems with the ground water pressure on site and thus also threaten subsidence. Space for storing the radioactive water is running out and it seems likely that this will have to be eventually spilled into the Pacific.

Only 10 percent of the plant has been cleaned up although there are 8,000 workers on site at any one time, mostly dealing with the contaminated water. Run-off from storms brings more contamination down the rivers from the mountains.

There are millions of 1-ton container bags full of radioactive debris and other waste which has been collected in decontamination efforts outside the plant and many of these bags are only likely to last a handful of years before degrading and spilling their contents. Typhoons will spread this highly contaminated contents far and wide.

Let’s look at the only real health data which has emerged to see if it gives any support to my original estimate of 400,000 extra cancers in the 200km radius. Prof Tsuda has recently published a paper in the peer review literature identifying 116 thyroid cancers detected over 3 years by ultrasound scanning of 380,000 0-18 year olds.

The background rate is about 0.3 per 100,000 per year, so in three years we can expect 3.42 thyroid cancers. But 116 were found, an excess of about 112 cases. Geraldine says that these were all found because they looked: but Tsuda’s paper reports that an ultrasound study in Nagasaki (no exposures) found zero cases, and also an early ultrasound study also found zero cases. So she is wrong. The thyroid doses were reported to be about 10mSv. On the basis of the ICRP model, that gives an error of about 2000 times.

From the results of our new genetic paper we can safely predict a 100 percent increase in congenital malformations in the population up to 200km radius.

In an advanced technological country like Japan these will be picked up early by ultrasound and aborted, so we will not actually see them, even if there were data we could trust. What we will see is a fall in the birth rate and an increase in the death rate because we know what has been happening and what will happen; we have seen it before in Chernobyl. And just like Chernobyl, the (Western) authorities are influenced by or take their lead from the nuclear industry: the ICRP and the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) which since 1959 has taken over from the World Health Organization as the responsible authority for radiation and health (Yes!).

They keep the lid on the truth using ill-informed individuals like Geraldine Thomas and, by analogy with New Labour: New BBC. Increasingly I could say “New Britain” as opposed the Great Britain of my childhood, a country I was proud of where you could trust the BBC. I wonder how the reporters like Rupert can live with themselves presenting such misguided information.

Fukushima is far from being over, and the deaths have only just begun.

Reference:

1. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35761141

2. Genetic Radiation Risks-A Neglected Topic in the Low Dose …
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26791091

Christopher Busby is an expert on the health effects of ionizing radiation. He qualified in Chemical Physics at the Universities of London and Kent, and worked on the molecular physical chemistry of living cells for the Wellcome Foundation. Professor Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk based in Brussels and has edited many of its publications since its founding in 1998. He has held a number of honorary University positions, including Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health of the University of Ulster. Busby currently lives in Riga, Latvia. See also: http://www.chrisbusbyexposed.org, http://www.greenaudit.org and http://www.llrc.org.

March 12, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Nuclear Power, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | BBC, Fukushima, George Monbiot, Geraldine Thomas | Leave a comment

9/11 Experiments: The Force Behind the Motion

physicsandreason – March 3, 2016

Why can’t the experts demonstrate the force behind the motion?

March 6, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | 9/11, NIST, PBS | Leave a comment

Meet the Bogus Technology the Government Will Use to Frame You

corbettreport | March 1, 2016

SHOW NOTES AND MP4: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=18031

What happens if the facial recognition cameras get it wrong? Or the “visual microphone” detects the wrong sound? Or the emotion-reading or crime-predicting technology of the near future is just quackery, designed to frame anyone the government wants to convict? Sadly, this isn’t sci-fi fantasy; it’s the present and we’re already living through it. Just ask Steve Talley…

March 1, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

Is sea level rise accelerating?

By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | February 23, 2016

Estimates of the rate of sea level rise are diverging.

For background on the topic of sea level rise, see these previous posts:

New PNAS papers

The current buzz surrounding sea level rise is associated with two papers just published in PNAS:

Temperature driven global sea level variability in the Common Era by Kopp et al. of Rutgers University, published in PNAS.

Future sea level rise constrained by observations and long-term commitment by Mengel et al., published in PNAS

From the phys.org summary:

Global sea level rose faster in the 20th century than in any of the 27 previous centuries, according to a Rutgers University-led study published today.
Moreover, without global warming, global sea level would have risen by less than half the observed 20th century increase and might even have fallen.

Instead, global sea level rose by about 14 centimeters, or 5.5 inches, from 1900 to 2000. That’s a substantial increase, especially for vulnerable, low-lying coastal areas. “The 20th century rise was extraordinary in the context of the last three millennia – and the rise over the last two decades has been even faster,” said Robert Kopp, the lead author.

The study used a new statistical approach developed over the last two and a half years by Kopp, his postdoctoral associates Carling Hay and Eric Morrow, and Jerry Mitrovica, a professor at Harvard University.

Notably, the study found that global sea level declined by about 8 centimeters [3 inches] from 1000 to 1400, a period when the planet cooled by about 0.2 degrees Celsius [0.4 degrees Fahrenheit].

A statistical analysis can only be as good as the data it’s built upon. For this study, a team led by Andrew Kemp compiled a new database of geological sea-level indicators from marshes, coral atolls and archaeological sites that spanned the last 3,000 years.

The database included records from 24 locations around the world. The analysis also tapped 66 tide-gauge records from the last 300 years.

Kopp’s collaborators Klaus Bittermann and Stefan Rahmstorf at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany used the study’s global sea-level reconstruction to calculate how temperatures relate to the rate of sea-level change. Based on this relationship, the study found that, without global warming, 20th century global sea-level change would very likely have been between a decrease of 3 centimeters [1.2 inches] and a rise of 7 centimeters [2.8 inches].

A companion report finds that, without the global warming-induced component of sea-level rise, more than half of the 8,000 coastal nuisance floods observed at studied U.S. tide gauge sites since 1950 would not have occurred.

Stefan Rahmstorf has a RealClimate post discussing the new papers.

Additional media reports:

NYTimes : Seas are rising at fastest rate in last 28 centuries
SciAm : New data reveal stunning sea level rise

An interesting angle from the NYTimes article:

One of the authors of the new paper, Dr. Rahmstorf, had previously published estimates suggesting the sea could rise as much as five or six feet by 2100. But with the improved calculations from the new paper, his latest upper estimate is three to four feet.

That means Dr. Rahmstorf’s forecast is now more consistent with calculations issued in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that periodically reviews and summarizes climate research. That body found that continued high emissions might produce a rise in the sea of 1.7 to 3.2 feet over the 21st century.

Roger Pielke Jr tweets: Sans spin: Climate scientist known for being wrong admits error, reduces estimate of sea level rise by 50%. IPCC was right

NASA

Last August, NASA issued two new press releases: Warming Seas, Melting Ice Sheets and NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise. How Much? How Soon? It seems that these press releases were triggered by a new interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team. Excerpts:

For thousands of years, sea level has remained relatively stable and human communities have settled along the planet’s coastlines. But now Earth’s seas are rising. Globally, sea level has risen about eight inches since the beginning of the 20th century and more than two inches in the last 20 years alone.

All signs suggest that this rise is accelerating.

NASA has been recording the height of the ocean surface from space since 1992. That year, NASA and the French space agency, CNES, launched the first of a series of spaceborne altimeters that have been making continuous measurements ever since. The first instrument, Topex/Poseidon, and its successors, Jason-1 and -2, have recorded about 2.9 inches (7.4 centimeters) of rise in sea level averaged over the globe.

Ok, some simple arithmetic. 7.4 cm over a period of 23 years equals 3.2 mm/yr. No surprise – this is the number cited by the AR5 for satellite based sea level rise estimates.

“Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it’s pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more,” said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead of the Sea Level Change Team. “But we don’t know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer.”

Here is the last sea level rise plot from the NASA altimeters:

IPCC AR5

I don’t really see anything new here, but the new PNAS papers and the NASA press release serve to highlight an issue that has been nagging me.

The IPCC AR5 includes the following figure of sea level rise over the last century (Figure 3.14)

Figure 3.14 18-year trends of global mean sea level rise estimated at 1-year intervals. The time is the start date of the 18-year period, and the shading represents the 90% confidence. The estimate from satellite altimetry is also given, with the 90% confidence given as an error bar. [AR5 WGI Figure 3.14]

Global sea level has been rising for the past several thousand years, owing to the retreat of glaciers from the last ice age. The key issue is whether the rate of sea level rise is accelerating owing to anthropogenic global warming. It is seen from the figure above that the rate of sea level rise during 1930-1950 was comparable to, if not larger than, the value in recent years. The challenges to determining global sea level rise, particularly over the past 100 or 1000 years, are substantial.

Somehow, the IPCC AR5 drew this conclusion, in context of Figure 3.14:

“Since the early 1970’s, glacier mass loss and ocean thermal expansion from warming together explain about 75% of the observed global sea level rise (high confidence)”

Go figure.

Other recent papers

Other recent papers that I’ve collected on the topic:

Modeling sea-level change using errors-in-variable integrated Gaussian processes, by Cahill et al. (published in Journal of Applied Statistics )

“Our analysis of the global tide-gauge record shows that the rate of GMSL rise increased (accelerated) continuously from 1.13 mm/yr in 1880 AD to 1.92 mm/yr in 2009 AD.” While Cahill et all find an acceleration in sea level rise over the past century, their inferred rate of current sea level rise (< 2 mm/yr) is significantly lower than the value of 3.2 mm/yr derived from satellite altimetry measurements.

Robust reef growth in Indian Ocean kept up with sea level rise > 20X faster in past [link] …

New paper shows sea levels dropped along west coast of North & South America from 1993-2013 [link] …

Coastal planning should be based on proven sea level data, by Parker and Ollier

Highlights:

The network of tide gauges provides the only information of value for costal planning.
The worldwide naïve average of sea level is +0.24 mm/year with no acceleration.
The climate models have crucial flaws making them useless.
Planning schemes must only reflect the proven local and global historical data.

JC reflections

So, what to make of all this?

Sea level rise is the main ‘danger’ from human caused climate change (any increase in extreme weather events is hypothesized rather [than] demonstrated using historical data, with possible exception of heat waves in a few regions).

At a presentation that I made earlier this year to CEOs of small electric cooperatives, one participant was surprised by what I had to say about sea level rise – he hadn’t realized that there had been sea level rise prior to 1950. I.e., like ‘climate change’, all sea level rise has been sold as caused by humans.

Sea level has overall been rising for thousands of years; however, as the Kopp et al. paper points out, there have been century scale periods of lowering sea level in the recent millennia. It is not clear from my cursory reading as to whether meaningful decadal and multi-decadal variations in sea level can be discerned from their data.

The key issue is whether the sea level rise during the past 50 years reflect an acceleration in sea level rise. The IPCC figure 3.14 suggests that there is no acceleration, given the large rates of sea level rise in the first half of the 20th century. Until we have an understanding of variations in decadal and multi-decadal sea level rise, we can’t make a convincing argument as to acceleration.

With regards to coastal planning, I absolutely agree with the paper linked to above. Locations where sea level rise is a problem invariably have rates of sea level rise that are much greater than even the altimeter values of 3.2 mm/yr are caused by local geologic processes, land use, and or coastal/river engineering. Global values of sea level rise have essentially no use in coastal planning; rather they seem mainly relevant in terms of motivating ‘action’ on carbon mitigation policy.

Sea level will continue to rise, no matter what we do about CO2 emissions. We need creative solutions – one of my favorites remains the garbage solution.

February 23, 2016 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Brazil Ends Monsanto Linked Pesticide Use to Fight Zika After It’s Exposed as Cause of Birth Defects

By Matt Agorist | Free Thought Project | February 16, 2016

On Sunday, the Free Thought Project reported on the recent information released by the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), who revealed that the Brazilian government’s assertion that microcephaly was caused by the Zika virus was not substantial. PCST exposed a popular larvacide pyriproxyfen to be the actual suspect.

The chemical, pyriproxyfen, was added to the state of Pernambuco’s drinking-water reservoirs in 2014, by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, in an effort to stop the proliferation of the Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito.

The report by PCST revealed that the pesticide, sold under the commercial name SumiLarv, is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese subsidiary of Monsanto.

“Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development. It is an endocrine disruptor and is teratogenic (causes birth defects).

“Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added pyriproxyfen to drinking water is not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on Zika virus for this damage, while trying to ignore its responsibility and ruling out the hypothesis of direct and cumulative chemical damage caused by years of endocrine and immunological disruption of the affected population,” according to the report by Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns.

In a move that would never happen in America, the Brazilian government actually listened to the group of doctors and suspended the use of pyriproxyfen, pending further study.

In a communique, the state government said that “the suspension was communicated to the 19 Regional Health Coordinating Authorities, which in turn will inform the respective Municipal Monitoring services” in all cities in the state, according to Fox News Latino.

Up until now, Brazilian scientists have been attributing the increase in microcephaly to the Zika virus. However, on Sunday, Rio Grande do Sul Health Secretary Joao Gabbardo said that, despite the fact that a relationship between the larvicide and microcephaly has not been proven, the “suspicion” that there may be a linkage had led the organizations to decide to “suspend” the use of the chemical.

“We cannot run that risk,” Gabbardo said.

Of course, this news is being met with backlash by those who have advocated adding this larvicide to the water supply.

“That is a rumor lacking logic and sense. It has no basis. (The larvicide) is approved by (the National Sanitary Monitoring Agency) and is used worldwide. Pyriproxyfen is recognized by all regulatory agencies in the whole world,” Health Minister Marcelo Castro told reporters Sunday.

Also, the Monsanto affiliate, Sumitomo Chemical also claimed that “there is no scientific basis for such a claim,” adding that the product has been approved by the World Health Organization since 2004 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2001.

The fact the WHO has officially gone on record and stated that microcephaly is not linked directly to the Zika virus has been of little consequence to the Health Secretary. Also of little consequence to the Health Secretary, is that there haven’t been any cases of microcephaly attributed to the Zika virus in past outbreaks.

According to the report by PCST:

Previous Zika epidemics did not cause birth defects in newborns, despite infecting 75% of the population in those countries. Also, in other countries such as Colombia there are no records of microcephaly; however, there are plenty of Zika cases.

The caution and proactive response by the Brazilian government are noteworthy and should serve as an example to officials in the United States who continue to expose citizens to a myriad of toxic chemicals banned in countries across the planet.

February 16, 2016 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science | Microcephaly, Pyriproxyfen, Zika Virus | Leave a comment

Bitter truth: Sugar may be as harmful as stress – study

RT | February 16, 2016

A group of researchers from Australia and India released a study suggesting that sugar consumption may cause not only diabetes and obesity, but also brain defects comparable to those caused by stress or abuse.

The study published in the Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience journal focused on whether and how the diet may influence the brain compared to to stress and other psychological loads during infancy.

The scientists paid special attention to the hippocampus, a brain region responsible for long-term memories, stress regulation and behavioral patterns.

The tests involved female Sprague-Dawley rats (“as females are more likely to experience adverse life events,” the scientists explained) from one litter with half of them being exposed to artificial stressful conditions such as limited nest material for the first days of their life. The other half lived normal rat lives free from stress and anxiety.

During the next stage there were four groups of rodents: a no-stress group drinking water, a no-stress group drinking sugar solution, a stress group drinking water and a stress group drinking sugar solution.

The experiment took 15 weeks and ended with a check of the rats’ brains. The autopsy showed similar anomalies in the hippocampus regions both in the rats that were stressed but drank water and the non-stressed rats that drank sugar. The receptor hindering the stress hormone cortisol was found impaired which means coping with stress for those rats wouldn’t be that easy.

“The novelty of this study lies in the finding that chronic consumption of sugar produced equivalent hippocampal molecular deficits as early life stress exposure,” the study said.

Both sugar and stress also messed with a gene, called Neurod1 that is accountable for the growth of nerves. Other similar genes were affected only by sugar, the study noted.

However, it’s still not clear whether similar processes take place in human bodies as well, and so further research is required, the scientists said.

The results raise a major issue since the diet of an average modern human often includes sugary soft drinks.

“If similar processes are at play in humans, manipulating the later environment of those exposed to early life adversity, and controlling the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages across the community may be an effective way to curtail the burden of psychiatric disorders,” the study explained.

‘The worst calories’: Sugar even more harmful than it seems, study finds

February 16, 2016 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science | Sugar | Leave a comment

Brandon Turbeville: “The connections between the United States and Daesh are there for all to see”

Interview by Mohsen Abdelmoumen | American Herald Tribune | February 16, 2016

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Do you think that the agreement on a ceasefire in Syria that the US has got to Russia is not intended to give a new breath the terrorist groups to enable them to reorganize, but also to erase the traces of links between the United States and Daesh? Some information from various intelligence sources reveal that Daesh elements were exfiltrated further to Russian bombardments, what do you think?

Brandon Turbeville: I think the major reason behind the ceasefire was an attempt on the part of the Western powers, particularly the United States, to buy time for the terrorists in Syria who are now on the run because of the Russian assistance being provided to the SAA. The connections between the United States and Daesh are there for all to see – from the “ineffective” bombing campaign, the links between virtually all other groups fighting against the Syrian government to al-Qaeda and Daesh, and the leaked DIA documents that revealed the creation of a “Salafist principality” was actually the desire of the U.S. and its allies. So simply eliminating specific elements of the terrorist groups would not necessarily erase the clear connections between the United States and Daesh. Remember, Daesh is merely the progression of a series of name changes made by al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, not some mystery army that appeared in the middle of the desert without warning. It is true enough that allowing groups designated as ISIS proper to be eradicated might satisfy the curiosity of some but it would also eliminate the justification for direct American involvement in Syria also and it is not likely that the NATO powers want to see that happen. Also remember, this is a pattern we have seen since the Syrian military began launching a series of successful counter-offensives a few years ago and even more so since the Russian involvement. By this I mean that, whenever the terrorists (call them what you will – “ISIS,” “Nusra,” or “moderate rebels,”) begin to gain ground, the Western powers scream for Assad to step down. Then, there is no negotiation. But, when the Syrian military gains ground, we hear incessant calls for “peace” and “ceasefires.”

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How you explain the commitment in Syria of the Saudi army which is massacring in all impunity in Yemen in full sight of the planet. Don’t you think that Saudi Arabia sends reinforcement to Daesh?

Of course Saudi Arabia sends reinforcements to Daesh! Saudi Arabia has been one of the main financial backers of the group long before it was named “ISIS” in the Western media. Saudi Arabia has long been known as a major financial backer, supporter, and commander of terrorism. As far as their commitment to Syria, I would suggest that any direct Saudi or, for that matter, Qatari forces inside Syria are no more than decoys and proxy deterrents for the Russians and Syrians. The whole world has seen that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are paper tigers when it comes to military force. Neither country would stand a chance against any opponent in the Syrian theatre. But they can function as a state actor on the ground that would justify greater NATO involvement if bombed by the Russians or the Syrians. The Gulf forces would thus be much more than mere reinforcements for ISIS and other related terror organizations. They would be “untouchables” committing acts of war against Syria, supporting terrorists, and daring the Russians or Syrians to hit them with the possible repercussions being an American or NATO military response.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You mentioned 36 reasons why Hillary Clinton should not be president. No more than 36? How do you explain the mediocrity of the presidential debates?

There were many more than 36 but, at some point, a book has to come to an end if it is to be released before the primary elections which was the goal. By far, Hillary Clinton is the most odious Presidential candidate in the race. Her ties to Wall Street, Foundations, NGOs, oligarchs, and treacherous think tanks are too numerous to mention. Her support for every single war since she was first lady, her assault on Constitutional rights, and her numerous scandals should disqualify her from being legitimately considered as a candidate for President.

I think the candidates appear mediocre because every single one of them represents the continuation of the present system. For instance, can you name one who does not support war in some form? Can you name one that has a modicum of respect for Constitutional rights? You can’t! Even the more seemingly radical candidates like Sanders and Trump are supportive of “safe zones” in Syria, essentially direct military invasion. Both are selective in their support for Constitutional rights with Trump demonstrating a willingness to clamp down on the First Amendment and Sanders willing to crack down on the Second.

It is also important to note that the Establishment here in the United States appears to favor Hillary Clinton as its figurehead. Thus, we see a major push by the American oligarchs to install her as President. Hence, we see the air of inevitability given her by the Republicans and mainstream media, Sanders’ weakness when debating and campaigning against her, and the possibility that Republican candidates like Donald Trump are actually working with her on the Republican side of the field.

Essentially, the candidates are mediocre because American political discourse is mediocre. The oligarchs in the United States have made sure that truly original ideas or those that do not reflect the position of the oligarchy never make it through in a political debate.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: There was the show of the COP 21 where the major powers have said that it was a success and that the agreements would be respected. Do you think that with a carnivorous capitalism and a criminal imperialism, it is possible to lead to any agreement for environment?

I don’t see the COP 21 meeting as positive in any way. Particularly because the solutions to environmental degradation are based upon the idea of Anthropogenic Man-Made CO2-based Global Warming and amount to nothing more than genocidal austerity measures that drastically reduce the living standards of the First World and condemn the Third World to remain in its current conditions. The tragedy is that it does not have to be this way. The world’s people are very much able to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to higher living standards, development, and a clean environment. However, an obsession with faulty “climate science” that blames CO2 for everything under the sun and a world corporatist system that would sooner eliminate every tree from the planet if it meant increasing profits are combining to provide the worst of both worlds – austerity and corporate feudalism.

My suggestion to people of good will is to abandon the CO2 alarmism and focus on real world solutions to real world problems like deforestation, fracking, radioactive contamination, genetically modified crops, and the like. Ending imperialist wars would also go great lengths to providing an opportunity to tackle environmental issues. Focusing on true environmentally friendly development and the repair of damage already done should be the focus of the world community. Money is already available for this from any nation that has the courage to nationalize its central bank and use credit stimulus for the purpose of research and implementation.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: About the Zika virus, one speaks of a great manipulation which serves the interests of industrial groups and various lobbies. What is your opinion?

Zika Virus represents a potential world health emergency but it also represents the possibility that certain lobbies – medical, pharmaceutical, vaccine, and many others – are attempting to generate panic for increased profits. It is also possible that certain elements within the ruling elite are helping push the concern over Zika for the purpose of distraction or even the eventuality where many societies may see a government crackdown on their civil liberties under the guise of a public health emergency. Remember, only months ago, Ebola was touted as the disease that would kill us all. We saw preparations for vaccines, quarantines, and virtual martial law. In February, 2016, few Americans even remember the Ebola scare.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: What is your assessment of both Obama mandates, and is he free from the arguments of the neocons?

Obama was rushed to office in 2008 in what could almost be deemed a color revolution. There were certainly elements of a well-funded personality cult. 2012 seemed to represent more of a fear of Romney on the part of the electorate than support for Obama, who, for some, still retains his personality cult superstardom. I would be careful of calling it a mandate, however.

As for the neocons, Obama is no different than a neocon. His policies are essentially the same as George W. Bush and one could scarcely point to one that is different. Only in implementation are differences visible. For instance, Bush’s years were marked with direct military invasion while Obama’s involved “humanitarian bombing” and proxy forces but the overarching agenda of imperialism continued. The crackdown on domestic civil liberties has continued at an increasing speed. Neocons themselves are still visible in the Obama cabinet. All this is a demonstration of the fact that the office of the President has become a mere puppet post, where a dominant elite changes figureheads every four to eight years. The agenda of that elite simply moves forward under a different brand. Mark my words, regardless of who is elected, 2016-2020 will be no different.

Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen

Who is Brandon Turbeville?

Brandon Turbeville is an author and a writer who resides in Florence, South Carolina. He is – article archive here – the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2,The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria,and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Brandon joined Anti-Media’s team as an independent journalist in July of 2014. He has written over 700 articles dealing with the Middle East, Geopolitics, Syria, Economics, Health, government corruption, and Civil Liberties. Turbeville has been interviewed by a number of media outlets in the alternative media as well as the independent and mainstream. He has been interviewed by PRESS TV, al-Etejah, FOX, ITAR-TASS, LPR, and Sputnik International. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV.

His website is BrandonTurbeville.com.

February 16, 2016 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | al-Qaeda, COP-21, Da’esh, Hillary Clinton, NATO, Obama, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

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Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam

By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022

There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.

UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable

During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.

Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.

Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue

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