{"id":200102,"date":"2020-01-01T06:55:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T06:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=200102"},"modified":"2020-04-08T19:50:30","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T19:50:30","slug":"open-season-on-critics-of-5g-cell-phone-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=200102","title":{"rendered":"Open Season on Critics of 5G Cell Phone Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Media Censorship And Smear Campaigns against Prominent Scientists and Physicians<\/em><\/h2>\n

Microwave News \u2013 via Global Research<\/a> Dec 6, 2019<\/h1>\n

Last May, the New York Times tried to take down David Carpenter<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, a public health physician and the country\u2019s most prominent 5G critic. Veteran science writer William Broad painted Carpenter as a willing tool of a disinformation campaign promoted by RT America, a TV network which he described as \u201cthe cat\u2019s paw of Russian president, Vladimir Putin.\u201d The page-one story<\/strong><\/span><\/a> ran under the headline, \u201cYour 5G Phone Won\u2019t Hurt You But Russia Wants You To Think Otherwise.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Two months later, on July 16, Broad was back for another hit on Carpenter. This time, he was given most of the front page of the Times<\/em>\u2019 Tuesday science section, to portray Carpenter as a fringe player working \u201chard to revise established science.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Much of what Broad wrote was fiction. (See \u201cA Fact-Free Hit on a 5G Critic.<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Now <\/strong>Scientific American <\/strong><\/em>has ambushed Joel Moskowitz<\/a><\/span>, one of the few other academics willing to state the obvious: No one knows whether 5G is safe.<\/strong> Moskowitz, based at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, runs the widely read blog<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, Electromagnetic Radiation Safety. This new attack, written by David Grimes<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, an Irish physicist and science columnist, is vicious. Grimes labels Moskowitz a scaremonger \u2014it\u2019s in the headline: \u201cDon\u2019t Fall Prey to Scaremongering about 5G<\/strong><\/span>.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just the beginning. Grimes goes on to portray Moskowitz as falling victim to \u201cillusory truth,\u201d accusing him of \u201calarming ignorance\u201d and disseminating \u201cgroundless falsehoods.\u201d Moskowitz\u2019s outlook is \u201cmost certainly a fringe view\u201d which pivots on \u201cfatally flawed conjecture,\u201d according to Grimes. He saves the worst for last, comparing Moskowitz and anti-5G activists to liars and anti-vaxxers:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne need only look to the alarming renaissance of once-conquered diseases, driven by anti-vaccine disinformation online \u2014the human cost when superstition and mendacity outpace science.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s Grimes who gets the science all wrong. He claims that the cancer findings of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP<\/a><\/strong><\/span>) are a \u201ccanard.\u201d This is simply not so. We may argue about the strength of the link between cell phone radiation and cancer but not whether the NTP found one. The NTP concluded, without qualification, that its $30 million animal study found \u201cclear evidence<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a> of an association. Grimes calls this claim \u201cprofoundly misguided,\u201d citing as backup only an isolated blog post from May 2016, two-and-a-half years before the final NTP report was released.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grimes is also wrong about Interphone: this 13-country epidemiological study shows a link, according to an expert panel<\/strong><\/span><\/a> convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC<\/strong><\/span><\/a>). Grimes touts the Danish cohort study<\/strong><\/span><\/a> as a \u201cmost reliable\u201d example of a study showing cell phones are safe, but, in fact, it\u2019s of dubious quality, again according to the IARC panel, as well as just about everyone who has read beyond the abstract. Radar radiation has not been exonerated from cancer risks, as Grimes would have us believe \u2014his claim is based on a literature review<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by a group of industry consultants.<\/span><\/p>\n

On and on it goes, one distortion after another, most taken from industry\u2019s propaganda playbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Rebuttal to a Rebuttal to a Rebuttal<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Grimes\u2019s piece is the third on 5G radiation and health to appear in Scientific American<\/em> in just the last few months. The first<\/strong><\/span><\/a> was by Ken Foster<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, an emeritus professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, in mid-September. Foster has long maintained that microwaves have not been shown to cause injury \u2014including cancer\u2014 other than by heating tissue. Moskowitz wrote to Scientific American<\/em> and asked for permission to reply. The editors agreed and his rebuttal<\/strong><\/span><\/a> was posted on October 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the negotiations over his response to Foster, Moskowitz asked Mike Lemonick<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, the chief opinion editor at the magazine, whether anyone would be allowed to rebut him, and, if so, whether Lemonick would then give him, Moskowitz, the opportunity to respond. \u201cSince your piece is already a rebuttal to an earlier piece,\u201d Lemonick wrote back, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t plan to publish a rebuttal to your rebuttal. And the idea that I would then publish a rebuttal to a rebuttal to a rebuttal is, frankly, absurd.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then Lemonick changed his plans and published Grimes\u2019s hatchet job. While it took the editors close to a month to run Moskowitz\u2019s rebuttal to Foster, Grimes\u2019s piece appeared just 11 days after Moskowitz\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI asked Lemonick what had changed his mind,\u201d Moskowitz told me over Skype. \u201cHe replied that Grimes had contacted him and made what he called a persuasive case that my piece needed to be rebutted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not long afterwards, I picked up the thread and asked Lemonick what Grimes had told him that he found so persuasive. \u201cGrimes\u2019s arguments were essentially the same as those that appeared in his essay,\u201d Lemonick wrote back.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grimes has a history of writing polemical attacks on those who reject the industry\u2019s rosy picture that cell phone radiation is unquestionably safe. Last year, he went after two American journalists \u2014Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie\u2014 who accused the cell phone industry of a coverup. Their story<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, \u201cHow Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe,\u201d originally ran as a \u201cspecial investigation\u201d in the Nation<\/em>. A couple of months later, the U.K. Observer, a <\/em>major Sunday newspaper, published an abridged version<\/a><\/strong><\/span> of their expos\u00e9. Grimes hit back in the Guardian<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, <\/em>the Observer<\/em>\u2019s sister paper. There he covered much of the same ground as what he would later present in Scientific American<\/em>, including accusations of scaremongering and the nightmare of \u201cvaccine panic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Did <\/strong>Scientific American<\/strong><\/em> Publish Grimes\u2019s Hit Piece?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Foster and Moskowitz opinion pieces were a standard pro\/con exchange. Neither wrote anything surprising. Each made his case in a civil, respectful manner. Indeed, Foster coauthored a similar argument about microwaves (but of course not 5G) in an article<\/a><\/strong><\/span> for Scientific American<\/em> magazine more than 30 years ago! Anyone who follows Moskowitz\u2019s blog would be familiar with his point of view.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did Lemonick cave to Grimes and allow the conversation to degenerate into name-calling and science fiction? Perhaps he couldn\u2019t say no to someone who presents himself as a visiting cancer researcher at the University of Oxford, even if his day job is being a postdoc at Queen\u2019s University, Belfast. Was it a lack of fact-checking? Maybe both?<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked Lemonick again what made him do it. He quickly replied that he would take \u201canother look,\u201d adding, \u201cI certainly don\u2019t want to mislead our readers or give Dr. Moskowitz unfair treatment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As it happened, at the same time Lemonick and I were exchanging emails about Grimes and Moskowitz, Scientific American<\/em> came under fire over another opinion piece. This one was on the subject of women\u2019s health. The article criticized a gynecologist, Jennifer Gunter<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, the author of The Vagina Bible,<\/em> who became a star on social media after taking on Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop business empire. In this case, Scientific American<\/em> buckled and, within four days, removed<\/strong><\/span><\/a> the piece from its website. (It is still accessible<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in the Internet Archive.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In the press reports<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that followed, Lemonick was quoted as saying the magazine had \u201cfailed in our responsibility to do a thorough fact-check.\u201d Whatever its faults, the now-deleted text is less strident than Grimes\u2019s assault on Moskowitz. That Gunter has more than 270,000 politically active Twitter followers<\/a><\/strong><\/span> no doubt helped her side draw Scientific American<\/em>\u2019s attention. Moskowitz has fewer than 2,000 followers.<\/span><\/p>\n

My best guess is that the decision to publish Grimes\u2019s diatribe can be attributed to the success of the industry campaign to discredit anyone who even suggests that cell phone radiation may have negative effects. As a result, otherwise thoughtful editors are willing to spike the most vanilla statement that more research is needed. It appears that they don\u2019t think it matters, because claims of microwave health effects are nothing more than junk science.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, that doesn\u2019t explain why Scientific American<\/em>, in an Orwellian move, deleted Moskowitz\u2019s article from its listing of opinion pieces. If you search the magazine\u2019s website for \u201cJoel Moskowitz\u201d all you get is Grimes\u2019s attack on him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0As I was finishing this story, Lemonick wrote to tell me that he is \u201cgoing to reconsider\u201d his decision about not running a rebuttal to a rebuttal to a rebuttal and might now allow Moskowitz to respond to Grimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

As to whether Grimes had been fact-checked, Lemonick said, \u201cOur fact-checking of opinion pieces has traditionally been less rigorous than that of reported pieces, but we\u2019re reviewing that policy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Originally posted at https:\/\/microwavenews.com\/news-center\/open-season-5g-critics<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simply saying that more health research is needed on 5G can be hazardous to your reputation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[106,42,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5g","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200105,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200102\/revisions\/200105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}