5. BLUE-RIBBON COMMITTEES AND POWERLINE EMF HEALTH HAZARDS
The possible public-health menace of powerline EMFs cannot be reliably evaluated by non-representative experts in a consensus-seeking process.
We believe that disease is the result of the operation of a causal chain. If we could identify links in the chain, perhaps it would be possible to prevent the operation of one or more of the causes, with the result that the disease would not develop. Despite advances in the treatment of disease and increased knowledge of the genes and other mechanisms that mediate disease, we know little about the causes of disease. Why did this person develop this disease at this time?
We attribute some causes of diseases to God or fate - an atavistic gene or a capricious microbe. Some causes, however, may originate from where people live or work. The possibility that powerline EMFs could be this kind of a cause has been with us since at least the 1970s. In response, from time to time, various kinds of experts formed committees to evaluate the evidence and offer an opinion to the public about the health hazards of EMFs.
The formation and functioning of these blue-ribbon committees of experts were complex sociological phenomena, with important differences between individual committees. But the defining characteristic of the blue-ribbon-committee approach to the evaluation of EMF health hazards was the goal of seeking a consensus among the committee members regarding the meaning of the scientific evidence.
The first EMF blue-ribbon committee was appointed by the United States Navy to evaluate potential health implications of animal studies conducted to assess the impact of a large antenna proposed for construction in Michigan. The antenna's EMFs were similar in some respects to those of powerlines, although far weaker. The committee, which included Dr. Becker, met in Washington, DC on December 6 and 7, 1973, and then issued a report evaluating the data provided. The general tone at the meeting was surprise at the many different kinds of biological changes apparently caused by the EMFs used in the studies. The committee reached no conclusions regarding the safety of the antenna's EMFs, but it was concerned about the health implications of EMF exposure, particularly with regard for what it said was a large population at risk because of powerline EMFs.
In 1976 a second committee was appointed under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to evaluate the health implications of the same antenna. The NAS committee, whose most prominent member was Herman Schwan, concluded that the antenna's EMFs would not cause a significant and adverse biologic disturbance. The committee said it could not identify with certainty any specific biological effects that would definitely result from exposure to the antenna's EMFs.
In 1984, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), Arlington, Virginia, conducted a third review of the potential health risks of the antenna's EMFs. The AIBS committee unanimously agreed that EMFs can cause a variety of biological effects, but that it was unlikely that the antenna's EMFs would lead to adverse public-health effects. Also in 1984 a blue-ribbon committee connected with the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report dealing with health hazards of powerline EMFs which concluded that it was not possible to make a definitive statement about health hazards of powerline EMFs.
In at least two instances, the health risks of powerline EMFs were evaluated by self-organizing committees. In 1995, the American Physical Society (APS) issued a press release that said there existed no consistent, significant, and causal relationship between exposure to powerline EMFs and cancer.
The second instance occurred during a lawsuit in California where the San Diego Gas & Electric Company was being sued by a plaintiff who alleged that his cancer was caused by EMFs produced by the company's powerlines. Fourteen physicists, including 6 Nobel Prize winners, intervened in the case and submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the position of the power company. They concluded that the scientific evidence strongly indicates that it is not scientifically reasonable to believe that powerline EMFs increase the incidence of cancer.
In 1997, a 16-person committee sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that there was no conclusive and consistent evidence of health hazards from powerline EMFs.
The most ambitious attempt, by far, to extract consensus regarding the health hazards of environmental EMFs was carried out by the NIEHS. The effort consisted of multiple tiers of blue-ribbon committees that evaluated specified areas of EMF bioeffects studies, and a super committee, the Working Group, that provided an overall assessment of all possible health effects of powerline EMFs. Based largely on this report, the Director of the NIEHS shall inform Congress by November, 1998, whether powerline EMFs affect human health.
The activities of the EMF blue-ribbon committees frequently generated interest and awareness among scientists and the general public regarding man-made electromagnetic fields in the environment, and their potential health consequences. The 1973 Navy committee report was publicly released on the floor of the United States Senate. The 1977 NAS committee was the subject of a report in Science and was featured on two episodes of CBS' 60 Minutes. The press release of the APS was widely reported in the New York Times and other prominent newspapers. The 1997 NAS report was also widely covered in the media, and it seems certain that this will also be the case for the soon-to-be-released NIEHS report.
Partly as a result of the EMF blue-ribbon committees, whether intended or not, the public profile regarding environmental EMFs continued to rise and led directly to the NIEHS RAPID program, which for the first time made funds available for research by independent investigators to evaluate potential EMF health risks.
But, in several important ways, the blue-ribbon-committee approach to evaluating EMF health risks failed. First, no EMF blue-ribbon committee delineated the limitation of the physical thought-style as a method for evaluating evidence and reaching an overall decision. In most cases, the role of physical theory was over-emphasized and disproportionate to its probative value.
Second, the committees failed to recognize the basic nature of the EMF-induced bioeffects that are pertinent to the issue of health hazards from environmental EMFs. By adopting a too-narrow view of what could occur, the committees simply looked past what was actually occurring in the reported studies and thus failed to see the pattern of consistency that is manifested in the pertinent literature.
Third, the committees failed to identify decisional standards and to define dispositive terms. It is simply not possible to ascertain the meaning of committee reports because of the idiosyncratic reasoning principles and standards that were applied by individual experts, and the vague language that was used to state their findings.
The reasons why the EMF blue-ribbon-committee approach failed merit consideration so that a reliable mechanism for making good public-health decisions regarding environmental EMFs can be designed at some future time. My goal in this Section is to explain the failure of the EMF blue-ribbon committees. This requires discussion of (1) the process of appointment of committee members, and (2) the methods and procedures used by the committees to reach decisions.
If all the experts qualified to answer the EMF question were identified and polled, then the majority vote would be the consensus regarding the issue among those qualified to offer an opinion. Such an opinion would be the most reliable consensus obtainable. But most reasonable definitions of a qualified expert would result in too many individuals to appoint to one committee or assemble in one place at a specific time. Consequently, the only practical means of obtaining the opinion of all qualified experts is to estimate it, based on representative sampling of the population of qualified experts. If the individuals whose votes were to be counted were truly representative of the population, then it would be reasonable to impute the results of the poll of the limited group to that larger population, thereby resolving the technical problem of having too many experts to assemble at one time.
On the other hand, if the individuals polled were not representative of all qualified experts, then a generalization of the committee's vote would not be valid. It is easy to see why this is the case. If members of the Sierra Club concluded that cutting redwoods would adversely affect the environment, or members of the National Rifle Association concluded that banning guns would adversely affect personal freedom, these conclusions might not easily generalize to the general population. The opinion of non-representative committees simply represents the opinion of that group of experts.
Representative sampling can occur only if the qualifications of the experts were first identified. It would then be possible to randomly choose persons for appointment to the committee. Although the details of how the EMF blue-ribbon committee members were appointed were not disclosed, it seems certain that none were chosen on this basis.
Paul Tyler, then a commander in the United States Navy, chose the 1973 Navy committee members on the basis of who he knew and who he thought knew a lot about the biological effects of EMFs. I was present when Tyler explained the committee to Dr. Becker, and asked him to serve on it. The 1976 NAS committee was appointed by Phillip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences. He refused to tell me how he chose the committee members, but the presence of three power-company experts made it clear that the selection process was not random. The members of the 1984 WHO committee were nominated or appointed by the power companies of the countries that had representatives on the committee. As best I can tell, the 1984 AIBS committee was appointed by H.P. Graves, the committee chairman. At least he was the one who contacted me and asked me to write a paper for submission to the committee. The 1997 NAS committee was almost certainly not chosen randomly from a defined pool of experts because too many of the members of the committee were publicly associated with an ambivalent or negative attitude toward the possibility that powerline EMFs could affect human health. The plethora of NIEHS blue-ribbon committees were probably chosen by Christopher Portier on the basis of his perception of their special competence. I do not believe that he would even claim that they were chosen randomly or were representative of an identified class of experts.
In each case, therefore, the EMF blue-ribbon committees consisted of people who were not representative of a defined group of experts whose collective opinion or consensus would be the proper one for resolving the question of whether powerline EMFs affect human health pursuant to a consensus process. In each case, therefore, the conclusion represented only the view of that ad hoc committee, and does not generalize in any reliable manner.
The officials who appointed the EMF committees must have had reasons of some kind for appointing those whom they appointed. For example, Handler maintained that Schwan was chosen for the 1976 NAS committee not because of his views but because of his expertise, indicating that Handler had an idea of what a suitable EMF expert was. Similarly, when Portier appointed the NIEHS Working Group, he must have had in mind what he thought an expert in EMFs was. But neither Handler nor Portier, nor any official who appointed an EMF blue-ribbon committee, disclosed these qualifications. Consequently, it is impossible to independently assess whether the people chosen were qualified to opine to the American public regarding powerline EMFs.
The NIEHS Working Group report, for example, tells us that one person was Division Leader, Molecular and Structural Biology Division, University of California, and that another person was Professor, Northwestern University Medical School, Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry. But academic rank and job titles do not entail expertise in the biological effects of electromagnetic fields.
Each of the members of the 1998 NIEHS Working Group was an expert in some area of science, as attested to by the listed academic achievements and job titles. But common sense tells us that if scientific facts are to be established by a committee vote, then each person with a vote ought to consider all the available evidence. However, this principle conflicts with NIEHS' apparent goal of creating a committee whose members each had expertise in a specific area arguably pertinent to the issue. Thus, the Working Group undoubtedly were experts, but their expertise probably did not extend to all of the evidence presented. What is a professor of molecular pharmacology supposed to know about cancer or suicide or electromagnetic fields? What is a division leader of structural biology supposed to know about the immune system?
Expertise is a special competence in a particular area. It allows the expert to more reliably resolve some issues than would otherwise be the case. But expertise does not elevate the reliability of an expert's opinion regarding all issues. Expertise does not create an aristocracy whose members simply think better than others. Consequently, when experts make decisions regarding questions outside their expertise, the basis for accepting their opinions as scientific facts is destroyed. For example, nineteen members of the NIEHS Working Group voted to say that powerline EMFs were "possibly carcinogenic" to human beings, and 17 members voted that the evidence was "inadequate that they cause suicide or depression", and that there was "no evidence in experimental animals for powerline EMF effects on the immune system". It is difficult to see how, even in principle, the best decision or even a good decision can emerge from a process in which all committee members have limited expertise but are given equal voice in all component judgments related to the basic issue. Consequently, no reliable meaning can be attached to the committee voting.
The Politics of Appointment to EMF Blue-Ribbon Committees: A Case Study
In early 1976, after Herman Schwan had filed his testimony on behalf of the power companies in the legal dispute, I learned that he had been appointed to the 1976 NAS EMF blue-ribbon committee, along with other powerline experts from the same dispute. It was difficult for me to understand how the power company experts could possibly have been appointed to the NAS committee, considering that they had already said that EMFs up to 100,000 times stronger were safe. What disturbed me was not that these men had pre-formed opinions, but rather that opposing opinions were not represented on the committee. The other members of the committee appeared to be distinguished scientists in their respective areas of expertise. But I could see no nexus between their expertise and the question of whether the antenna's fields would be health risks. Few of the members of the committee had any connection with EMF biology studies, and those that did had opined publicly in general support of Schwan's approach to the issue.
In January, 1976 I called J. Woodland Hastings, Head of Biology at Harvard, the committee chairman, and complained to him about what I perceived to be the unfairness and lack of credibility of the committee. Hastings was surprised to learn of the appointment of the powerline experts. He told me that he just assumed that everybody on the committee was an unbiased expert because "that's the way the NAS works." I learned from Hastings that the committee members had been picked by Phillip Handler.
I thought that Handler had erred badly in appointing the powerline experts to the committee, and this suggested to me that his other appointees might also have problems, in particular, they might not be qualified to render public-health opinions about EMFs. Hastings did not see it that way. He assumed that the other committee members were qualified because they were appointed by Handler, and Hastings' focus was on the 3 powerline experts. He told me that he would seek either to have Dr. Becker and me appointed to the committee for the purpose of balance, or have the powerline experts removed from the committee.
As I saw it, EMF biology itself hung in the balance. The use of electromagnetic fields to treat human diseases and to control human development and physiology was an area that was just developing in 1976. The first FDA approved application of these techniques was still almost 3 years away, but work toward that goal was well underway in several laboratories, including our own. What concerned me was not only that bad advice might be passed off to the American public as good science because it was channeled into the public domain by the NAS. I was also concerned about the implications for potential EMF therapies. The gist of the power companies' position was that EMFs produced no effects. If they produced no effects, they couldn't produce good effects. End of story. End of a new area of biology.
Over the next 2 months, Hastings dealt with the National Research Council (NRC), and in particular with Samuel Abramson, the project officer who was managing the committee. Hastings' naïveté about the NAS committee seemed real. He was surprised to learn from the NRC that one of the power company experts was a major stockholder ("more than $10,000") in power companies (actually, the same power company for which the expert was testifying in the legal dispute).
But by March, 1976, I think Hastings realized that he had hit a brick wall in his attempts to revamp the NAS committee, because he refused to take my telephone calls or respond to my letters. At that point I resigned myself to the inevitable and turned my attention back to the legal dispute which had begun to consume my professional career. As a final, ending statement, however, Dr. Becker and I sent a statement to the NAS committee in April that formally stated our experiences and our opinions (because my contacts with Hastings had been off the record).
I did not realize that our statement to the NAS committee would be a public document. Even if I had, I would not have guessed that anyone would be interested in it. However, a writer for Science obtained the statement and wrote a report that described our criticisms of the NAS committee. The Science report appeared in June, 1976. Soon thereafter, we were contacted by CBS' 60 Minutes, and Dan Rather came to our laboratory and interviewed Dr. Becker regarding his criticisms of the NAS committee.
In February, 1977 the CBS' 60 Minutes interview with Dr. Becker aired. In a letter published in the Detroit Free Press, Handler said that our charge that the NAS committee was stacked was "laughable" and "intolerable." The letter suggested that the antenna was safe, even though the NAS committee, which was supposed to be evaluating the question, had not issued its report.
The first semester of my personal experience with the NAS EMF blue-ribbon committees ended, or so I thought, with the 60 Minutes piece. The depth of the antagonism that we had engendered merely because, from my point of view, we had told the truth and called a spade a spade did not become apparent to me until two years later. In September, 1979 the April, 1976 Science report was re-told in an article in the Saturday Review. Handler went ballistic. He wrote the Saturday Review that the article was "willful and venal" and "insulting to several distinguished scientists and to the National Academy of Sciences." The letter included a manuscript that he demanded be published, in which he called me everything but decent. I thought that publishing the manuscript was a good idea, because the manuscript supported my contention that the NAS committee was pre-programmed to reach the conclusion it ultimately reached. But, in the end, the editors decided not to do so.
What is the point? When Handler appointed the 1976 NAS EMF blue-ribbon committee, he fully expected that the committee would ultimately reach the conclusion that they did reach. Not only was the conclusion foreordained, so was the evidence that would be considered, the evidence that would be ignored, and the reasoning that would be followed. The same was true of the 1997 NAS EMF committee, and the 1998 NIEHS EMF committee, and each of the other EMF blue-ribbon committees, with the exception of the first one.
What makes the 1976 NAS EMF committee unique is that I had a window into the appointment process, and thus saw first-hand its essential unfairness. Handler would have never reacted as he did if he was really right and Dr. Becker and I were wrong. The take-home message is that no one can be trusted to appoint the judges who will decide an important public-health issue such as the potential health hazards of powerlines in a secret process pursuant to undisclosed criteria, because even prominent men have biases and make mistakes. If secret appointments are made, that result is tantamount to allowing the appointer himself to decide the ultimate issue because the people appointed will opine in predictable ways. That's what happened in the case of the 1976 NAS EMF committee, and I think that's what happened in the other cases.
Rules and Procedures of EMF Blue-Ribbon Committees: A Case Study
The final reports of the EMF committees contained scanty information concerning the evidence considered by the committee members, who found and presented the evidence, whether the committee members meet face-to-face, how often they met, and the method and procedures followed in reaching their conclusions. In the case of the self-appointed EMF blue-ribbon committees the absence of documentation and detail was almost absolute. Nevertheless, all the evidence available to me suggested that the process was not pretty - that if the public saw what went on, they would not be pleased with how policy decisions that affect public health were made. My first opportunity to directly observe the activities of an EMF blue-ribbon committee while it was deliberating occurred recently. It wasn't pretty.
In April, 1998, I served on three of the NIEHS blue-ribbon committees at a meeting held in Phoenix, AZ. The meeting lasted three days, and I was on a different committee each day. After each daily session, I dictated notes regarding the activities of the committees to describe what was going on and how decisions were being made. What follows are those notes, unvarnished and unchanged except for the removal of some irrelevancies. I made no effort to edit or rearrange them into a chronological sequence or to make them committee-specific because my purpose then (and now) is to convey a sense of how the committees functioned, not to chronicle their deliberations. The notes contain my opinions because it was impossible for me to describe what was going on without including them.
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NIEHS Blue-Ribbon Committee Meeting
April 6-9, 1998
Hyatt Regency at Civic Plaza
Phoenix, AZ
The seating was a square arrangement of tables, with the committee members assigned to specific locations. The chairman sat on one side, flanked by two committee members who had been assigned to write a contemporaneous record of the committee's deliberations. In most meetings they would be called secretaries, but here they were called rapporteurs, and the word was always spoken in French. The chairman and the rapporteurs occupied one entire edge of the table arrangement, thereby creating a teacher vs. student spatial arrangement.
Each committee member's seat was marked with a large sign that gave his name and affiliation. Both pieces of information were written on each side of a placard, which was folded in the middle so that it set well on the table and could be read by all the other committee members, regardless of where they sat. Each placard also carried the logo of the NIEHS. The placard did not indicate, however, anything about the background or professional status of the committee members, most of whom were strangers to me. They could have been Ph.D.'s, M.D.'s, D.V.M.'s, or in the case of the foreign members of the committee they could have had still other kinds of academic degrees. The placard also didn't specify what the committee member did at the place where he worked. It would have been nice to know where they stood at home.
The attention to detail at the meetings was impressive. Very little was left to chance. For example, to make sure that scientists assigned to particular committees went to the right room, little colored dots were placed on each participant's name badge and the corresponding colors were posted on the wall outside the rooms where the committees met. The meeting rooms all had names, of course, but just in case we couldn't read we could always follow the colors.
The NIEHS provided an unlimited supply of coffee, cokes, tea, and bottled water, and a limited supply of muffins and cookies, and a $39 a day food allowance. The chairman and the rapporteurs got an additional $150.
The big dog was Christopher Portier, who was appointed by the NIEHS director to run the overall evaluation for the RAPID program. Portier was, basically, a mathematician who specialized in analyzing data risks from various pollutants in the environment. Portier seemed well-suited for the job from a public-relations point-of-view. He projected an aura of keen interest in his task, someone who would listen attentively to the various points of view, but someone who would not act imprudently or allow himself to be seen as a champion of one or other viewpoint.
Portier is a small thin man, with a ring of thick brown curly hair that girds his head like a halo. He looks like a balding Leonardo de Caprio. The default position on his face is a mild smirk, mediated by a slight curve of his mouth on the left side. The expression is most pronounced when he is confronted with an issue that he had not previously considered. In such a situation, he says nothing, he only smirks.
Portier is a smart man in at least two ways. He seems to be able to read science articles in fields beyond anything he has previously experienced, and to appreciate the important points being raised in the report. Second, he is politically aware. As a member of the federal bureaucracy, he must cooperate with an alphabet soup of other federal agencies that have some connection with the EMF area. It's a matter of comity. Portier might think, for example, that the representatives from the Department of Energy are in bed with the power industry, but nevertheless, he must treat them like colleagues and equals. He does the job admirably, never betraying his true feelings about the scientific sophistication of the sister federal agencies.
My impression - and it is only an impression because Portier has a zipped lip on the topic - is that he has a deep and abiding contempt for the research program of the Electric Power Research Institute. This is a common theme throughout the community of EMF investigators. Even so, the 1992 Energy Policy Act requires that the NIEHS cooperate with the power industry in seeking the truth about health hazards of EMFs. Consequently, Portier's hands are tied. The power company position, and its particular spin on the scientific evidence, is inside the tent.
Portier is a committee guy. Sometimes he calls them committees, sometimes he gives them other names, but he operates by appointing advisory groups whose chief role is to inform him, and act as his sounding board. Within the NIEHS, Portier has what appears to be quite a small staff to orchestrate his inquiry. Several other persons from outside NIEHS but inside the federal government are usually listed as part of Portier's staff. But taken together, the group is largely for logistical and tactical purposes, and has no responsibility to directly evaluate the question posed by Congress.
Portier created a process to review and evaluate the evidence about EMFs. He asked for people's opinions about how to do that. Portier is always asking for people's opinions. There's actually little evidence that he accepts advice, but he is constantly in an advice-requesting mode.
Portier divided the EMF studies into three main areas, each of which was the subject of a symposium where scientists came to reason together. Each of the main areas was subdivided into sub-areas, resulting in the formation of about 30 committees, one for each sub-area. Some sub-areas were broad (brain cancer), some seemed important but hard to define (immunotoxicity), and some were obscure, and possibly irrelevant (cell calcium).
Portier, insofar as I can tell, decided essentially by himself who would be invited to the three symposia and appointed to the committees. The symposia themselves were completely open - O.J. Simpson or Monica Lewinsky could have come had they chosen to do so - but only the people chosen by Portier were on the committees.
Why would anybody serve on a committee? Well, it was an all-expense-paid trip to a nice location, just to talk about science, and no work was required. Second, like me, many of the invitees were NIEHS grantees. Having received from several hundred thousand to more than a million dollars to perform research, it would seem downright ungrateful and I think just plain wrong to refuse to attend the meeting. Third, particularly for the foreign scientists, one can imagine how honored they must have felt when asked to come to the United States and participate in the symposium.
Portier not only invited foreign scientists, he placed them in control of important parts of the various symposia. It was not unusual, for example, for someone from Finland or Switzerland to be placed in charge of a session, or for someone from Quebec to be afforded a prominent role in shaping the discussion of a particular scientific point. Portier could be certain that the foreign scientists would not complicate his life by stirring up the pot of competing interests regarding EMFs that exist in the United States. In most other countries in the world, I think that the question posed by Congress must look funny. No country on earth is concerned about the health hazards of EMFs as much as is the United States. No other country has spent as much money, litigated and politicked as much, published as many scientific reports, or, generally speaking, gotten as exercised by what's going on. There seems to be something peculiarly American in the idea that it's wrong for companies to save money by involuntarily exposing people to electromagnetic fields on the basis of a claim that the practice is safe, in the opinion of the scientists who work for the industry. There is no significant opposition to this idea any place outside the United States, except perhaps Sweden which is the only country where the quality of the EMF research exceeds that of the United States.
The foreign scientists seemed me to view the EMF question more like an academic exercise, than as an exercise to ascertain what is or is not safe for the American public. The foreign scientists seemed to laugh a lot and take things in stride, as if there were nothing serious going on.
Prior to the meeting, each invited scientist was given a list of scientific articles that Portier considered suitable for inclusion in the judging process. No one actually said that articles other than those chosen by Portier couldn't be considered. It was simply that, from a practical viewpoint, it would have been mighty tough to do that. And pointless. About 10-20 articles were provided for each of my three committees.
Portier designed a clever organizational scheme to control the symposia and keep the scientists moving in the direction he desired. Generally, trying to control scientists is like trying to herd cats, but Portier did a good job. At each of the symposia, there were multiple committees (he dubbed them BOGs) meeting simultaneously. Each committee provided a report that detailed the workings of that particular committee. Portier chose the committee chairmen and the rapporteurs.
What was the meeting like? We sat around the table like a bunch of children at a back yard barbecue for our grandfather, Portier. When he spoke, we all listened. When he wanted something written down, it was written. When he wanted to discuss something in detail, we talked about it endlessly. When he was finished, we were finished. Nothing about the discussion would knock your socks off from a scientific perspective. "Have you measured such-and-such?" one member would ask another member. "Yes, we measured it but there was no effect." "Okay, write down 'no effect'," Portier said, and we moved on.
The process had no discipline whatever. Most members who spoke, were obviously reading reports at the meeting for the first time. There was simply no proportion between the seriousness of our endeavor and the process by which it was carried out.
Portier himself didn't chair any of the BOGs. But he attended many of them, and when he was present, he dominated. It was like being in a room with the President or the Pope. The other scientists in the room would address questions to him about particular reports or about scientific procedure. If he wanted something noted, it appeared in the report. If he wanted something omitted, it was omitted.
It was easy to understand why a sense of obsequiousness pervaded the room when Portier was present. Who was there? People from his staff. People from his advisory committee. People from other federal agencies. Foreign scientists. Industry scientists, and a handful of other scientists who admittedly knew almost nothing about the subject area of the meeting. Portier was in a position to get exactly what he wanted from that meeting. If he had wanted us to take a stand against beer in cans, I think that would have been a consensus position.
Portier is full of contradictions and inconsistencies. He said he didn't want the BOGs to be consensus-seeking committees, but rather committees that would provide him with a full range of opinion on a particular point. Nevertheless, every signal he sent was to the effect that we were to create a consensus of the scientists present.
In response to a question, Portier said that most of the chemicals that are presently recognized by his own agency as being harmful to the immune system do not have a well described mechanism of action. Thus, something can be harmful without being understood mechanistically. Nevertheless, Portier organized the three symposia such that there was a tight link between the question of mechanisms of EMFs (of which there are none known) and the question of whether EMFs affect human health. The gist of his strategy was to suggest that knowledge of mechanisms was somehow important in judging health risks, and that a firm conclusion regarding the latter couldn't be made in the absence of knowledge of mechanisms. It's hard to escape this conclusion, because the term mechanism was the second most frequently used word at the symposium (after "inconsistent" as in "inconsistent results"). I was particularly offended by this aspect of Portier's plan because it seemed to me to be hypocritical. Before he was elevated to the guru of EMFs, Portier did statistical analysis of data mostly associated with immunotoxicology. In that field, there exists an operational methodology for determining whether something is harmful. Now, when we ask the same question about EMFs, Portier simply ratchets up the degree of empirical evidence that's needed to conclude that a factor is a risk (now, we need at least some knowledge of mechanisms, he seems to suggest).
Another gross inconsistency manifested by Portier was that between his objective veneer and subjective attitude about how to make scientific decisions. At every meeting he organized, Portier gave a long detailed talk about his views of risk assessment, always accompanied by a handout that contained hard copies of his slides. They depicted an orderly, objective, rigorous decisional process. But, as if to temper this hard edge, on one of the slides Portier wrote "Experiments don't speak for themselves, we have to interpret them." Great. How true. But how do we interpret them? At one point, during the discussion of a particular paper in which an investigator had reported a statistically significant biological effect due to EMFs, Portier said "It's not enough to find effects, the effects have to be something you believe."
Portier said that he "wants to capture diversity of opinion", but how do you do that when you choose who is attending the meeting, tell them what to consider, and arrange for the people who will write the history. What you get from that process, I think, is what you want.
At one meeting I asked Portier the following question. "Suppose we had two studies, one of which showed that the measured parameter was statistically significantly increased due to EMF exposure, and a second independent replicate that showed the opposite result (statistically significant decrease). Are those results inconsistent?" "Yes, to me those results are inconsistent," he said. "Well", I said, "suppose my hypothesis was that EMFs affected the parameter, and that I had no hypothesis whatsoever regarding the direction of the effect? That is, my idea is that EMFs will be transduced and that, because the system is nonlinear, the dependent variable may be increased or decreased (because of sensitivity to initial conditions commonly found in nonlinear systems). Wouldn't you agree that, with this model and this hypothesis, that if the postulated results were observed, then the results should properly be labeled 'consistent.'?" Portier thought for a few moments and then said "Let's put Andy's concern aside and go on." Portier said he was doing it because my question was "too theoretical." But it wasn't theoretical, it happens all the time.
Throughout the sessions, confusion was obvious regarding both scientific reasoning within the context of particular studies, and how the results of groups of studies were to be generalized for the purpose of drawing an overall conclusion. Confusion regarding the supposed importance of a dose-response relationship as a criteria of validity of studies was a major problem. The relationship between the establishment of a mechanism and the establishment of validity of empirical data was another major problem. Many of the committee members were sensitive thoughtful persons, although many I thought held views regarding scientific reasoning that could have been shot down flat in an open debate. Nevertheless, they held these views sincerely and with an open mind. Real dialogue, however, never took place because it would have been unseemly to disagree with one of your colleagues, and downright rude to tell him why you thought he was dead wrong.
The meetings contained a cross-section of scientists, most of whom were narrowly educated in a particular specialty, and almost none of whom were in a position to see the big picture. Each of them was like someone in Plato's cave, chained in such a way that they could see only two-dimensional shadows, and not the three-dimensional reality that gave rise to the shadows.
When confronted with the problem of how to find scientific truth about public-health hazards of EMFs, Portier's first step should have been to analyze all previous attempts to accomplish this task, with an eye to discern why those attempts failed. One needs to talk to Portier for only 5 minutes to recognize that he has only the dimmest idea of the history of the problem he is attempting to solve. Being unaware of all of the previous mistakes, he was fated to repeat them.
One day, the Director called Portier and told him that he was to carry the water on the EMF project. It must have been an intoxicating day for Portier, but when he sobered up he must have realized that Congress is a political animal, that the laws passed are in response to political pressures, and therefore that there was a history regarding the issue with which he was charged. If he had paused and asked why, for the first time in the history of the Republic, has Congress taken such a step?, I think he might have evolved a decisional scheme that was more prudent and more reasonable. In particular, if he had looked at the reasons for the failures of the other blue-ribbon committees, he could have remedied them in the process that he was to design and implement.
What could have been done? First, there needs to be a recognition that there are going to be winners and losers at the end of the day when the question whether EMFs affect human health is answered affirmatively or negatively. If it's answered affirmatively, clearly that will cost the power companies money. Not only will they be required to widen some rights-of-way, they will probably be sued by people whom they have exposed to EMFs. On the other hand, if the question were answered negatively, then the people who live beside powerlines are simply going to have to live with that situation. Some will get sick because of it. They may not like it, but they will be stuck with it. Now, common sense tells you that in any situation where there are going to be winners and losers, there needs to be some procedure whereby people on each side of an issue can challenge the reasoning of the other guys.
Lawyers call the process cross-examination. It doesn't have to be that formal, but a winners-and-losers situation requires some recognition of the inherent adversarial nature of the situation, and an opportunity for one side to attack the spin on the evidence produced by the other side. The alternative to an adversarial process is a consensus process, and we already know that consensus processes don't work in the EMF area - that's why Congress wrote Section 2118 of the 1992 Energy Policy Act.
What did Portier do? He brought together a handful of scientists, many of whom were out of place in the BOGs to which they were assigned, and forced the process toward a consensus. As I sat there I thought why the hell should I talk? This guy doesn't want to hear what I've got to say. All of the papers that Portier assigned me to read had, in my view, severe inferential limitations. I kept thinking I wouldn't want some government committee making a decision on scientific evidence of the kind that might affect my family on the basis of a loosey-goosey generalized discussion by people who manifested various degrees of preparation, and who were never asked to explain why they had a particular opinion. In the committee meeting, it was impolite to ask someone to explain the basis for their opinion, and it rarely happened.
Portier's process was deja vu for a second reason. Past blue-ribbon committees usually summarized their work using terms that sounded definitive and clear to the layman, but which, on analysis, were quite the opposite. For example, there is no "convincing" evidence that EMFs are health risks, or EMF health risks have not been "proven", or EMF effects are not "robust" or "cause-and-effect relationships" have not been demonstrated. These simple-sounding terms are profoundly complex, and highly subjective. It's quite possible that I could be "convinced" that EMFs were health risks by certain items of evidence that are not sufficient to convince a power company scientist or stockholder. Portier repeated all of these mistakes in the documents and guidance that he provided to the symposium participants, and he even added some additional terms that had not appeared prominently in the EMF dispute. One example is "immunotoxicity." Is something immunotoxic if it causes any change in immune systems of animals? Only if it reduces the endpoint? Is it necessary to go further and show effects of EMFs on host-resistance endpoints? If the EMF caused a change in an immune endpoint, would that justify concluding that it "affects human health"? If not, what would be the state of the immunotoxicology literature that would justify that conclusion?
Another word that was used a lot which seems at first glance to have a specific meaning but ultimately turns out to be subjective was "abnormal." No one could define the term in any meaningful or objective manner, and there was never any consensus regarding what it meant in the context of laboratory studies. Even the significance of the distinction normal-abnormal was obscure. Should investigators search for EMF bioeffects under the assumption that if such bioeffects occur and can be imputed to human beings, then it will be assumed that they are adverse for the subjects? Alternatively, as the power-company spokesmen argue, should the committee members be looking for biological effects in animals? Then, if they are found, determine which of those effects are abnormal? Then, determine which of those abnormal bioeffects can be imputed to exposed human subjects? No one seems to know.
There was much confusion regarding the argument that the observed effects were "small." The term had different connotations in different BOGs. Sometimes it referred to the difference between an exposed and a control group in relationship to the difference between control groups from different laboratories where the experiment was replicated. In other cases, it meant that the measured parameter was within the range of measurements that is ordinarily considered to be normal for the parameter in the species. In still other cases the term meant that the difference between the exposed and control group in the EMF experiment was small in comparison with the effect produced by the investigator's favorite chemical. If that chemical produced a difference in means of 1000%, and the EMF produced a difference of 50%, then the effect of EMFs was "small." The point is there needs to be some determination of what the reasoning rules will be, prior to evaluating the evidence. Are we to regard EMFs as affecting human health if they produce any change, or do we require that the change be bigger than X%, or outside the normal range, or greater than inter-laboratory variation in control groups?
At the meeting, like good little soldiers, we voted 100% that EMFs had not been "conclusively" shown to cause skeletal abnormalities in chick eggs. We then voted 100% that electromagnetic fields had not been "conclusively" proved to cause birth defects in animals. Most of the committee members voted to say that the results were "equivocal." But the words were never defined. Committee members always seemed to avoid defining terms that had decisional impact. Terms like "robust", or "equivocal", or "controversial", or "inconsistent", or "cause", were never defined, despite their enormous importance in conveying the committee's conclusions. What, for example, is the public to understand by the conclusion that the effects of EMFs on fetal development are "equivocal." Does that mean that it is okay to buy a house beside a powerline? Does it mean that there is no likelihood that a pregnant woman living beside a powerline will have a spontaneous abortion or give birth to a malformed child, at least partially as a result of the magnetic field from the nearby powerline? The BOG did not infuse the statement with any substantive meaning, and therefore it is unreasonable to expect that someone who reviews the BOG's work product, Portier, for example, could do so. It is even more unreasonable to expect that the NIEHS Director will do so.
During one meeting, a committee member tried to help the group decide whether EMFs affected reproduction in animals. He had a copy of the report of the 1997 NAS committee which had a Table listing positive and negative reports that showed that 30% of the reports were positive. On that basis, the committee voted to say that the results were "equivocal."
It's easy for a chairman of a committee to implement his own agenda or impose his own bias. In one committee, the chairman did not accept the existence of cause- effect relationships in biological systems unless they were 100% certain. He said so clearly. Effects were "definite" or there were no effects. Nothing in between. At one point, during a discussion, he asked the committee to vote on whether or not the Henhouse studies showed that EMFs "could probably affect skeletal development in eggs". I asked him to clarify whether we were to vote on whether or not we thought the effects were "probably definite" or "definitely probable". Everybody laughed, but I wasn't trying to be funny.
That chairman is a good human being, the kind of guy you'd like to have for a neighbor. He would come over and help you move a refrigerator, he would attend your mother's funeral even though he never knew her, simply because you were his friend, and he would share with you the tomatoes in his garden. He doesn't kick his dog, his TV isn't too loud, and his kids don't have pierced tongues or pink hair. It's not that he isn't a nice guy. He simply isn't qualified.
Congress charged the Director to find out whether EMFs "affect human health." What exactly does that mean? What is the state of the evidence that would warrant an affirmative answer? In my mind, this issue must be resolved before the evidence is discussed. Apparently, as Portier looks at it, the issue doesn't have to be discussed at all.
There's something un-American about a process in which one man controls all important events, is not subject to any meaningful checks and balances, appoints himself as both investigator and judge, and renders a decision from which there is no appeal that has a pervasive effect on society, affecting the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people.
What do I expect? Two or more groups to present the evidence, and disinterested persons to judge the evidence and regulate the fairness of the process. Instead, we will be presented with Portier's view of the world, endorsed by the Director, and sent to Congress. It simply doesn't matter what is in Portier's report. He could exonerate EMFs, indict them, or take any other position. The point is that the process by which he has decided is fatally flawed. Decisions affecting the public interest ought not be made by one man, regardless how smart or honest he is. No one is that good.
In hindsight, it is clear that Congress' attempt to resolve the question of health hazards of powerlines by assigning the question to the NIEHS was doomed to fail. You simply can't throw $65 million at a problem and tell somebody "fix it." You must also specify what "fix" means. Otherwise, the money will be spent pursuing their notion of "fix," and then they will come back and ask for more money.
I think the Congress is unlikely to repeat this mistake again, and hence a search must commence for other mechanisms by which scientific data can be taken over into the public domain. The NIH deals in more or less certain science. It is ill-equipped to handle the inherently adversarial issue posed by Congress where things are not and cannot be. NIH has not mechanism, staff, nor tradition for resolving scientific disputes such as whether EMFs affect human health. I suspect that that infirmity would extend to any dispute where the public health is allegedly impaired by a pollutant under the control of an economic interest.
What will be the final result of the present process? A poorly documented, diffuse, vague, wishy-washy report in which terms are not defined, procedures are not specified, and the ipse dixit of scientists is presented as fact.
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In 1996 I was hopeful that the NIEHS would design a credible program to evaluate the health risks of powerline EMFs. My enthusiasm dimmed significantly when I received a copy of NIEHS' proposed strategy for evaluating the health risks of powerline EMFs. Portier asked for comments on the proposed strategy, and in response I sent him a detailed comment. It contained both an evaluation of the NIEHS proposal, and the outline of an alternative proposal.
When the plan for the first NIEHS symposium was posted on the NIEHS Web site, it became clear that Portier intended to implement his strategy, with no changes. I posted a note aimed at explaining why the strategy was futile, hoping that perhaps this would induce him to consider the problems that he ignored. I also sought him out at a meeting and tried to use the few minutes that he had available for me to emphasize my basic point. I urged that he make every expert that is part of his process write a report that detailed and explained and justified his position. That is the only way we will be able to identify the expert's opinion. Second, allow those who disagree with the expert the opportunity to confront him with evidence that is inconsistent with his position. Only in that way will we know the quality of the expert's opinion.
When NIEHS published its plans for a second and third symposia, I realized I had wasted my time. I never again took seriously Portier's requests for information and advice, and I never again tried to offer it to him.
The mantra that was often repeated at the NIH symposium was that a decision regarding whether powerline EMFs affect human health must be made on the basis of the "best science available". Unfortunately, this will not be the case. There is actually a significant danger that the decision won't be made on the basis of any science at all, but rather that it will be determined essentially by the process.
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