In recent weeks there has been a lot of debate about the recently published review of studies that examined the potential effect of wireless radiation on the development of brain cancer in humans. This review is part of a series of systematic reviews commissioned by the WHO EMF Project. These reviews will be used as the scientific basis for the Environmental Health Criteria evaluation of the impact of wireless radiation on human health. It is necessary to remind everyone that these systematic reviews are not the ‘last word’ but are only a ‘raw material’ for the group of scientists who will use them for the preparation of the Environmental Health Criteria.
The way how the systematic reviews were conceived is, in my opinion, biased and should be considered questionable by any fair-minded scientist or policymaker.
The WHO EMF Project has announced a call for the preparation of systematic reviews and asked the scientific community to participate. The scientists were to organize themselves into teams of experts. Such teams were organized without (?) the participation of the WHO EMF Project and were to be independent of any vested interests – just pure science and expertise.
Teams self-organized and self-proposed readiness to prepare systematic reviews for the WHO EMF Project. WHO EMF Project selected, from all applying teams, the ones that were commissioned to prepare systematic reviews. Who selected the final cut-making teams and what were the criteria for taking certain teams and rejecting other teams nobody knows because the WHO EMF Project was very secretive.
WHO EMF Project was secretive when selecting teams to prepare systematic reviews and, the WHO EMF Project was equally secretive when selecting the scientists to group that will prepare the final version of the Environmental Health Criteria using these systematic reviews as a starting point of deliberations.
The secretiveness of the WHO EMF Project, to the point of paranoia, is not good for anything and for anybody. The explanation of the WHO EMF Projects that the secretiveness was to protect from lobbying is unacceptable.
I will laugh out anyone who will claim that the WHO EMF Project was not lobbied to do things this way – in secrecy. There is a huge lobby with huge vested interests and money at stake to let the WHO EMF Project do Environmental Health Criteria without supervision and control.
Finding out details of lobbying is a great opportunity for investigative journalists aiming at the Pulitzer Prize.
Several WHO EMF Project’s commissioned systematic reviews have already been published. The common conclusions are that to date published research studies are of poor quality and results are either unreliable or uninformative. This is nothing new because this is and has been a common and frequent talk within the scientific community, for many, many years.
What is puzzling and astonishing is that this poor-quality biomedical research on the effects of wireless radiation is being used to assure users of wireless devices that the current radiation safety guidelines protect everyone regardless of the way they use the devices, their age, and health status. It seems all right for the same scientists to complain about the quality of science in a review article but use the same ‘quality science’ when preparing safety guidelines. Is it morally and ethically correct? I don’t think so.
Now, back to the already published systematic reviews, especially this on brain cancer…
The published systematic reviews are praised by some scientists but complained about by others. The major reasons for the complaints are questions about the justification of the criteria why some articles were excluded from the systematic reviews and others were retained and the interpretation of the results presented in the conclusions of the systematic reviews. Some scientists say all is fine. The others say there is bias involved and they are publishing peer-reviewed scientific opinions critical of the way the science was analyzed and interpreted by the systematic reviews commissioned by the WHO EMF Project.
It is not uncommon that different scientists interpret the same science in different ways. This problem is especially seen when the science is ambiguous, like the science of wireless radiation and health.
What should be done to ameliorate the potential bias from the interpretation of ambiguous science?
The answer is to appoint a group of experts with diverse, even opposing opinions, and let them debate science until they reach constructive consensus they all can agree upon.
Some will say it is a utopia. I respectfully disagree and I have a fact to support my opinion.
In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) appointed a group of 31 scientists (I was one of them), the Working Group, to review the available research on wireless radiation and cancer. The final evaluation was performed by 30 scientists because one of the scientists was found to have a potential conflict of interest. He was offered to remain but not as a voting member of the Working Group, but he minded and refused to participate.
The 2011 IARC Working Group consisted of scientists with very diverse opinions on wireless radiation and cancer. There were those claiming that wireless radiation causes cancer, those claiming that doesn’t, and those who were still in-between (like myself).
We discussed science as a large group and in smaller break-out groups. We argued. We debated. We voted. Not everyone agreed fully on all conclusions but, we reached a consensus that was acceptable to the vast majority of the Working Group members. The outcome is known to everyone. Wireless radiation was classified as a possible human carcinogen, group 2 B on the IARC carcinogenicity scale. This classification was based on the evidence from epidemiological studies with supporting evidence from animal studies.
And here comes a twist…
In parallel, what was not commonly known at the time, another group of scientists did review the same epidemiological studies on wireless radiation and brain cancer and prepared opinion with the following conclusion (in 2011): “Although there remains some uncertainty, the trend in the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone use can cause brain tumours in adults.”
The opinion prepared by the group of scientists with diverse views was that wireless radiation is a possible human carcinogen.
The opinion prepared by the group of scientists with the same-minded views was that wireless radiation is unlikely to cause brain cancer.
Fast forward back to today…
A group of same-minded scientists prepared a systematic review claiming that it is unlikely that wireless radiation causes cancer.
What would be the systematic review prepared by the scientists with diverse opinions who would debate science and not work as an echo chamber?
We do not know and we will never know.
WHO EMF Project was lobbied to do what it did. Instead of scientific debate, the WHO EMF Project commissioned systematic reviews from an echo chamber.
Therefore, I do not fully trust the outcomes of all of the WHO EMF Project commissioned systematic reviews. The scientists performing these are all good and respectable. However, the WHO EMF Project’s process was flawed. Scientists, no matter how good they are, were selected in secrecy, using secretive criteria and the outcomes are echo-chambers’ opinions.
It is why, I do not trust the WHO EMF Project’s systematic reviews. There was a way to do it better, like IARC in 2011. But, I guess, the lobby prevented it…