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A Work In Progress
Internet Posted in 2007
by James DeMeo, Ph.D.
Director, Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory
PO Box 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA
E-mail to: info(at)orgonelab.org
(Click or copy into your email program and insert the "@" symbol)
First presented to a Special Session at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco 1994; also presented to Special Sessions at the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division, American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the 72nd Annual Meeting, 1996, Northern AZ Univ., Flagstaff, Arizona, and 74th Annual Meeting, Mesa State College, Grand Jct. Colorado. The text below reflects this third presentation.
This is the third time I've been asked to say something about this most pressing issue in the modern sciences, the suppression of new ideas and discoveries by unethical and repressive methods. The public exposure of such activities are generally unwelcomed in the modern scientific arena, as there is a widespread illusion that suppression and censorship, with devastating personal attacks against individual scientists, does not exist in the world of modern science. We can accept the historical cases, such as the trial of Galileo by the Catholic Church, but that is safely distanced by several hundred years. All the offending characters are buried in their graves. Not so the modern examples, some of which are every bit as shocking as what happened to Galileo, or worse. While genuine scholarship demands an open and dignified reception of even the most odd and challenging of ideas from one's fellow scholars, all too often the attitude of "academic superiority" predominates, setting the stage for power-politics of all sorts. Academic science is then transformed into Grand Theatre, from whence "behind the curtain" the most vile and aggressive actions can be played out against dissenting heretics. "Academic freedom" then becomes an empty slogan, a facade which serves only to cover-up serious abuses. It is my unfortunate conclusion, supported by the examples to follow, that power politics is now dominant in the natural sciences, and especially so in medicine.
During my prior discussions of these issues, I've purposefully not spoken about the attacks which have been directed against my own research, against me personally, as to do so invites the listener to rationally consider I might only be expressing "sour grapes". But it should be apparent that my own keen interest in this subject is based upon personal experiences. At some point, I'll make a detailed discussion of my own battles, some of which I've won, others lost. (Note: Click here for more info.) You'll hear more about my research at the two presentations I'll make on Tuesday and Wednesday. For today, this paper will address what others have experienced at the hands of the authoritarian medical-academic power structure -- which is similar to any other authoritarian-hierarchal political or even military power structure.
The following list of concrete examples is taken from books and articles in my own library, and so is limited to only those published case studies I know about which reveal facts about serious breaches in scientific ethics. The time-range for the analysis is approximately 1950 to the present, which insures that many or most of the perpetrators are still alive. Many are still holding their positions of power, and continue with their unethical suppressive activities. The examples are organized in topical categories.
* We can start with two books that give a generalized overview of serious suppression of new ideas in the modern sciences. Confronting the Experts, Edited by Brian Martin (SUNY Press, Albany, 1996) and Alternative Science: Challenging the Myths of the Scientific Establishment, by Richard Milton (Park St. Press, Rochester Vermont, 1994). These books are an excellent starting point, but they both fail to mention the more serious examples cited below, of police raids on natural healing clinics, of scientists being thrown out of their jobs or jailed for their discoveries, etc. -- they instead focus upon examples where scientists have been criticized or censored mildly, but who remain "within the system". If one reads only these books, one gets the sense that scientists are sometimes stupid or unfair, but not that there is any kind of despotic hierarchy, which in fact is the case.
* Two current books provide even more documentation on the modern abuses of power by the FDA and medical community. Dirty Medicine : Science, Big Business and the Assault on Health Care, by Martin J. Walker (Slingshot Press, London, 1993) and Racketeering in Medicine: The Suppression of Alternatives, by James P. Carter (Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Virginia 1992) provide well-documented evidence of the conspiratorial collusion between pharmacy companies, medical organizations and government agencies dedicated to "protecting" the public health. The conspiracy is generally directed at the suppression of non-allopathic MD health practitioners who tend to use more natural and inexpensive methods, such as Chiropractic, Midwifery, Osteopathy, Herbalism, Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Naturopathy, and so forth. This war against natural healing methods began in the 1930s and 1940s, and has continued since, carried forward by power and money motivations, to establish a medical monopoly on health care -- driving out natural, inexpensive, and effective methods for treatment of disease. This on-going process of attack and repression has been the subject of many articles and books over the years, with an extensive non-mainstream literature. Some of these publications are cited in this paper.
* Wilhelm Reich Versus the
USA, by Prof. Jerome Greenfield (W.W.
Norton, NY 1974) documents the Reich Legal Case, which overshadows the
constitutional significance of even the Scopes Monkey Trial. It marked
the willingness of both mainstream journalists and government institutions (specifically the US Food and Drug Administration), working in collusion with various high-status medical doctors, medical journals and university laboratories, to introduce malicious gossip, deceit and fabricated "evidence" into an American court of law, resulting in a court order for the literal "banning
and burning" of scientific books, and the jailing of a scientist for his
discoveries. Reich was attacked in
newspaper articles by crank journalists making all sorts of false and concocted
claims about his work -- and those articles were later reprinted verbatim,
without editorial checking, in the Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, and the Journal of the American Medical
Association, whose editors already had
their own prejudices against Reich.
From there, numerous malicious stories attacking Reich appeared in other
newspapers and magazines, virtually none of which printed his rebuttals. The press campaign was followed by a successful
FDA injunction against Reich forbidding his research or sale of his publications, with burning of his works, and a later "contempt of court" action based upon technical violation of the same injunction. Reich died in prison in 1957, having received an unusually harsh 2-year sentence for a misdemeanor technicality. Reich's books, many of them classics (such as The
Mass Psychology of Fascism, Character Analysis,
and The Sexual Revolution) were
in fact burned in incinerators by FDA agents on several occasions, most
recently in 1962.
Since the time of
Reich's death, his books have been republished, and his controversial findings
have continued to be tested and successfully verified by scientists and
physicians in both the USA and Europe.
I've personally investigated and undertaken experimental evaluations of
Reich's more controversial claims,
on the microscopical sub-cellular bions,
on the cosmic-atmospheric orgone energy and orgone energy accumulator, and on the cloudbuster
device -- my results and conclusions closely match what Reich originally
described, and in this I am certainly not alone. There is a lot of bona-fide experimental evidence supporting
Reich's controversial claims and conclusions (see also the on-line Bibliography on Orgonomy); this work has
been undertaken in the best experimental-empirical tradition of the natural
sciences. Nevertheless, the
hateful and quite ignorant prejudice against Reich is so great within American
academic and medical circles, that university students with an interest in
Reich's work today often publish their research papers under pseudonym, and
medical practitioners who use his methods do so in secret, so as to avoid being
jailed. To this day, the FDA has
not acknowledged any wrong-doing in the Reich affair, even with respect to the
burning of books. (Also see: "The Jailing of a Great Scientist", by
Lois Wyvell, and "An Eyewitness Report of the Burning of Scientific Books
in the USA", by Victor Sobey, in Pulse of the Planet 4:70-75, 1993; and the historical sections of: Fury on Earth: A Biography of
Wilhelm Reich, by Myron Sharaf,
St.Martin's/Marek, NY 1983; The Orgone Accumulator Handbook, Natural Energy Works, Ashland Oregon, 1989.)
* The American Experience of Max Gerson: Censured for Curing Cancer, by S. J. Haught (Station Hill 1983) documents the attacks suffered by Gerson from the medical establishment, following his discovery and publication of very positive results in the treatment of cancer and other degenerative illness using nutritional-dietary methods. Gerson was attacked by the AMA, FDA, and state medical boards which today continue to forbid any cancer treatment which falls outside of the unproven and largely ineffective "big three": surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The Gerson Clinic continues today, under the leadership of Charlotte Gerson (Max Gerson's daughter) in Tijuana Mexico. Any doctor who uses the method in the USA is at risk of losing their license. (also see: A Cancer Therapy: Result of 50 Cases, by Max Gerson, Gerson Institute, 1970).
* The videotape Hoxsey: Quacks Who Cure Cancer (produced by Ken Ausubel, Mystic Fire Video, 1990) documents the case of Harry Hoxsey, whose veterinarian father developed an herbal cure for various cancers. The Hoxsey treatment was offered in dozens of clinics across the USA in the 1940s and 1950s until published attacks by the AMA, and FDA police raids, shut them down. The Hoxsey treatment continues to be offered at the BioMedical Clinic, in Tijuana Mexico.
* The Cancer Cure that Worked: Fifty Years of Suppression, by Barry Lynes (Marcus Books, Ontario, 1987), is a sketchy introductory discussion of the case of Raymond Royal Rife, a superb microscopist of the 1940s who developed a method for destroying microbes within the body with frequency-specific electromagnetism. Interestingly, both Rife and Hoxsey claimed they were approached by Morris Fishbein, then head of the AMA, with offers for the AMA to purchase the rights to their discoveries. Both men refused as it was clear the AMA would put a very high price on the treatments, or would never allow them to see the light of day. After the refusals, both Hoxsey and Rife were attacked in the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association (of which Fishbein was editor). The FDA weighed in shortly afterward, and their work was destroyed. Similar AMA attacks preceded the FDA attack against Wilhelm Reich.
* Coming to more recent times,
I've written a longer article "Anti-Constitutional Activities and Abuse of
Police Power by the US Food and Drug Administration, and Other Federal
Agencies" (Pulse of the Planet
4:106-113, 1993) which lists dozens of specific examples where the FDA, under
the leadership of former commissioner David Kessler, ordered Gestapo-type SWAT
team raids on natural healing clinics and vitamin manufacturing companies
across the USA -- and I use the word "Gestapo" with careful precision
here.
If you draw a mental image of police engaging in a surprise raid upon a
cocaine lab, with numerous cops with drawn guns, flak jackets, sledge-hammers
to break down doors, etc., swarming in and shouting "Police!
Police! Freeze! Get your hands up!
" Then realize they are in
fact making a raid on a doctor's office in some small town or city, because
they were prescribing Vitamin C, garlic pills, or a nutritional approach for a
health problem, instead of expensive drugs, surgery or chemotherapy. In these kinds of raids, it is usual
for all office furniture, files, computers, telephones, etc. to be confiscated
on the spot, and hauled away in a rented truck to be dumped in a storage
locker. In some cases, IRS agents
participated to assist with the confiscation of bank accounts, and sometimes
the personal homes of heretic physicians and their employees are raided in a
similar manner.
What makes these
abuses all the more incredible is that in most cases nobody is ever charged
with a crime -- it is done under the omnibus "drug seizure laws"
developed for cocaine and heroin pushers.
The attacked physician must go to court, plead their case to a judge,
and prove their innocence in order to get their property back -- before doing so, they must post a considerable
bond of around 25% of the value of the confiscated items and cash before the
court will even hear their case.
If they lose the case, they forfeit the bond. And even if they win the case, there is no guarantee that
the FDA, as they have done in the past, won't simply stage a second
raid a few years later, after the attacked
physician has picked up the pieces of their wrecked life and clinic. The goal in these cases is simply to
abuse the courts and legal system as a weapon against natural healing clinics
and practitioners. So far, the
courts are quite willing participants in this abusive, anti-Constitutional
process.
* Inventing the AIDS Virus, by Peter Duesberg (Regenery, NY, 1997) and AIDS:
The Failure of Contemporary Science, by
Neville Hodgkinson (Fourth Estate, London 1996), document the ongoing efforts
of a small dissenting group of virologists and physicians critical of the HIV
hypothesis of AIDS. Serious and
significant problems exist in this predominant theory, which assumes the virus
HIV is the cause. Criticisms focus
on contradictory epidemiological evidence which suggests other causes, on
problems with claims of pure-strain isolates of HIV, on problems with suitable
proof for the efficacy of the so-called "AIDS tests" (which may yield
false-positive rates of 100% due to the problem with unsuitable isolation of
HIV), and with toxic medical treatments offered to AIDS patients such as AZT -- a
DNA-chain terminator which among the other "AIDS treatment drugs" have side-effects indistinguishable from clinical
AIDS, and which therefore may in fact be the cause of a large percentage of the
pathology and death attributed to HIV.
Peter Duesberg,
professor of Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley, and his
approximately 500 associated scientists in the "Group for the Scientific
Reappraisal of the HIV Hypothesis of AIDS", have been almost completely
excluded from open or on-going discussion and critique of these problems. HIV critics are generally forbidden
from presentation at AIDS conferences (most are basically "trade association" meetings organized and funded by pharmacy companies), and are censored from publishing in the mainstream journals. A blackout of their ideas exists within popular media as well.
Duesberg's book Inventing the AIDS Virus has special sections on "Censorship in the Media" and also
"Censorship in the Professional Literature" containing full details
and citations. Some examples: Members of the National Academy of
Sciences have always had their papers automatically published in the
Proceedings of the NAS -- Duesberg is a member of the NAS, but the NAS
editorial board made a first-time exception and excluded his paper critical of
the HIV hypothesis. His NAS
"Outstanding Investigator" research grant was also terminated. His letters of rebuttal to Nature magazine were routinely forbidden by editor John
Maddox, who finally advertised the censorship with an editorial "Has
Duesberg a Right of Reply?" answering the question himself with an emphatic "NO".
The news media also
has "fallen into line" with the orthodox theory, and journalists will
rarely publish anything which contradicts the official party line of the
Centers for Disease Control -- public discussion of the AIDS-HIV issues are
today dominated by those whom Duesberg calls "AIDS Millionaires",
scientists who have gotten very rich from stock options and patent rights on
the various "tests" and "treatments" flowing from the
dominant HIV hypothesis. Reporters
who deviate from the party-line of AIDS orthodoxy rarely get their articles
published, or if so, are excoriated afterwards, thereby lowering their own
job-status and employability.
Major aspects of the HIV theory thereby are cloaked under large myths of
great scientific breakthroughs, when in fact the whole science of HIV is riddled with unproven assumptions, glaring contradictions, and stunning breaches of scientific ethics.
For example, Robert Gallo did not present his "evidence" on
HIV being the "cause of AIDS" for peer review, but rather held a
press conference with Margaret Heckler of the Department of Health and Human
Services, on the same day the patent rights were being filed. Gallo was subsequently charged with
scientific misconduct by the Office of Scientific Integrity of the NIH for taking
-- stealing -- his sample of HIV from Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute
in Paris. Gallo's HIV photos in
his earliest papers, and certain cell lines grown in his lab yielding HIV for
the lucrative patents on "AIDS tests" were taken from the French
samples previously loaned to him in the spirit of scientific cooperation. A subsequent lawsuit by the French
resulted in an out-of-court settlement and a French-American sharing of the
lucrative patent rights for the so-called "AIDS Test", and the
writing of an "official history" that erased any mention of the
serious breaches of scientific ethics.
Gallo's political influences at the DHHS eventually brought him an
exoneration, of sorts: the investigators significantly raised the "burden
of proof" for scientific misconduct and officially "acquitted"
Gallo, and then dropped investigation of the remaining serious charges. He lost his post at NIH, however, as
the political perfume could not completely cover up the stink of his misdeeds.
Today, Montagnier
asserts that AIDS needs "something more than HIV", while Duesberg and
others assert HIV is not the cause at all. For daring to make this challenge, Duesberg has not only
suffered the above-mentioned censorship and loss of laboratory funding at UC Berkeley. He is today treated like a pariah, isolated. Were it not for his tenure, he surely
would have already been fired. He
is today given mainly undergraduate courses to teach, pushed off important research
committees (and instead assigned to the "picnic committee", etc.) and
few graduate students will dare to speak with him, much less take his courses,
for fear of having their own careers ruined. One young top-notch student I know of was thrown out of his
Ph.D. program for daring to ask difficult questions of his professors at an
"open forum on AIDS" -- this is not an uncommon event, as many
students will testify that it is professionally risky to anger a professor by
asking questions they cannot answer.
Significantly,
John Maddox, the former Editor of Nature
magazine which figured prominently in the censoring of Duesberg and other HIV
critics later was an invited guest speaker at the First World Skeptics
Conference hosted by CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal), a wholely unethical anti-scientific organization
which does no research. CSICOP
publishes Skeptical Inquirer, a
publication which likewise refuses to allow persons attacked in its pages the
right of published rebuttal (this I know from personal experience). Maddox also figures into other serious
breaches of scientific ethics, as discussed below.
The bottom line of
all this is: few or none of the research papers being published today on the
subject of AIDS are given any form of effective critical peer review -- HIV critics aren't tolerated on journal editorial
boards, aren't actively consulted for their views on papers submitted for
publication (even if they are world-class researchers in the field of
retrovirology, as with Duesberg), and aren't allowed to publish critical
articles or letters-to-the-editor pointing out serious flaws in articles that
are published.
* Linus Pauling and Ewan Cameron published extensively on the role of Vitamin C therapy in the treatment of cancer, but insisted it would only work on patients whom had not previously been treated with immune-depleting radiation or chemotherapy. However, when the National Cancer Institute funded a study at the Mayo Clinic to test the Pauling-Cameron claims, they used a study group of 60 patients, only 5 of which had not received prior radiation or chemotherapy. No positive benefits were observed in this mis-constructed study. The NCI study was hotly criticized by Pauling and Cameron for this very clear and apparently deliberate oversight. A second NCI study satisfied this criticism, but among other problems, all patients were taken off the Vitamin C therapy after only a very short trial period -- on the unwarranted assumption the patients would do better on chemotherapy or other conventional treatments. Pauling's and Cameron's letters of rebuttal on that scientific misconduct were refused by the New England Journal of Medicine, which published the original flawed studies. The news media similarly distorted the findings, giving widespread publicity to the unsupportable NCI negative conclusions, but only derrogatory or no discussion of the Pauling-Cameron objections, nor to their original positive studies which prompted the NCI "investigation" in the first instance. Vitamin C therapy was thereafter classified as a "quack" remedy by the top dogs of the medical profession. Pauling called the NCI studies "fraud". (Pauling's citation list is extensive. For a good overview of this controversy, with citations, see: Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling, by Thomas Hager, Simon & Schuster, NY 1995)
* Psychiatrist Peter Breggin has authored several books of note, on the linkage of pharmacy money and power-politics in the field of psychiatry, with disastrous and deadly consequences for patients: Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock and Biochemical Theories of the "New Psychiatry" (St. Martin's Press, NY 1991), Talking Back to Prozac: What Doctor's Aren't Telling You About Today's Most Controversial Drug (St. Martins, NY 1997), Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Role of the FDA, (Springer, NY 1997), Talking Back to Ritalin: What Doctors Aren't Telling You About Stimulants for Children (Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine 1998) Breggin is one of a tiny handful of dissident psychiatrists critical of the basic premises and treatment methods of psychiatry. For doing so, he has been repeatedly attacked and professionally marginalized.
* A comprehensive index addressing censorship, FDA attacks, and orthodox fraud in the medical community would be lengthy indeed, but the following publications (in addition to others cited in this work) contain a good share of this information, and each has it own extensive list of citations.
- Robert G. Houston, Repression and Reform in the Evaluation of Alternative Cancer Therapies, Project CURE, Washington DC, 1989.
- Richard Ericson, Cancer Treatment: Why So Many Failures?, GE-PS Cancer Memorial, Park Ridge, Illinois1979.
- Barry Lynes, The Healing of Cancer: The Cures, The Cover-Ups and the Solution, Marcus Books, Ontario, 1989.
- Maurice Natenberg, The Cancer Blackout: A History of Denied and Suppressed Remedies and of the Methods Used to Discredit Independent Cancer Research and Treatments, Regent House, Chicago, 1959.
- Samuel Epstein, The Politics of Cancer, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1978.
- Robert Mendelsohn, et al, Dissent in Medicine: Nine Doctors Speak Out, Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1985
- Stanley Wohl, The Medical Industrial Complex, Harmony Books, NY 1984.
- John Morgenthaler & Steven Wm. Fowkes, eds., Stop the FDA: Save Your Health Freedom, Health Freedom Publications, Menlo Park Calif., 1992.
- Ralph Moss, Questioning Chemotherapy, Equinox Press, NY 1995.
- Robert Bradford, et al, A Complaint Against Medical Tyranny As Practiced in the USA: American Medical Genocide, Committee for Freedom of Choice in Medicine, Los Altos Calif., c.1985.
- Hugh Desaix Riorden, Medical Mavericks, Vol I & II, Bio-Communications Press, Wichita Kansas, 1988 & 1989.
- Lenny Lapon, Mass Murderers in White Coats: Psychiatric Genocide in Nazi Germany and the United States, Psychiatric Genocide Research Institute, Springfield Mass., 1986.
- David Stewart, "The Conspiracy of Doctors Against Doctors" NAPSAC News, 6(1) Spring 1981; "The Conspiracy of Doctors Against Midwives", NAPSAC News, 6(3) Fall 1981.
Biological Research
* The Memory of Water: Homeopathy and the Battle of Ideas in the New Science, by Michel Schiff (Thorsons, London 1995) documents the censorship and attacks upon Jacques Benveniste, a French immunologist whose research verified the principles of homeopathic dilution. Benveniste successfully demonstrated effects of a homeopathic dilution (a dilution theoretically containing no molecules of the original dissolved substance) of an antigen upon cells in vitro, which yielded clearly measurable antibody production. Nature magazine, under the editorship of John Maddox, refused to publish unless the results were independently verified at different laboratories. The independent verifications were successfully undertaken, but editor Maddox then demanded the right to send a team of experts to Benveniste's laboratory to oversee his procedures, to see for themselves how this unusual result had been achieved. Benveniste agreed to what turned out to be an "academic dirty-trick" -- nobody with a specialization in immunology was sent to the lab. Instead, a Nature editor, along with a CSICOP- affiliated celebrity magician and a well-known "fraud-buster" from NIH, invaded Benveniste's lab. The trio treated the whole undertaking with joking contempt, interfering with the procedures, and doing slight-of-hand magic tricks as Benveniste tried to explain his methods. Benveniste was brought to tears by their unprofessional buffonery, and a giant smear of his work later appeared in Nature. Benveniste later lost his post at the French INSERM laboratory (equal to the US National Institutes of Health), and had a heart attack. He survived, and continues his research through a struggling private institute. Maddox later confirmed his friendly connections to the unethical anti-science CSICOP crowd, as mentioned above in the section on AIDS criticism. (see: "CSICOP and the Skeptics: An Overview" by George P. Hansen, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol.86, Jan.1992, p.19-63) The book by Schiff, Memory of Water, is notable for its analysis and dissection of modern-day censorship methods.
* The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life, by Robert O. Becker and Gary Selden (William Morrow, NY 1985), contains a section on "Political Science" which alone is worth the price of the book. Becker was one of a small number of medical scientists researching the bioelectrical methods of cellular regeneration. His laboratory at the Veterans Hospital in Syracuse, NY hosted a team of top-notch post-grads, and he had already demonstrated new methods for stimulating the re-growth of amputated limbs of laboratory mice (from the elbow to the fingernails), an unheard of accomplishment that, if carried to its fulfillment, would give human amputees the possibility to literally re-grow lost limbs. His accomplishment was a challenge to conventional biochemical DNA theory, however, suggesting that cellular differentiation and DNA processes were under the control of a more primary bioelectrical phenomenon. Becker was attacked and, following a series of academic dirty-tricks, lost his laboratory and post with the Veteran's Administration.
* Biologically Closed Electric Circuits: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Evidence for an Additional Circulatory System, by Bjorn Nordenstrom (Nordic Medical Press, Stockholm, 1983) documents what is expressed in the book title: the existence of an additional circulatory system of bioenergy within the organism. Nordenstrom, in his role as Director of the Karolinska Radiological Institute in Stockholm, published his findings only after more than 10 years of painstaking research. His book is an exceptional masterpiece, filled with photos and graphics detailing his very precise measurements. It was widely ignored in the USA, however, selling only a few hundred copies. After its publication, Nordenstrom lost his position at the Karolinska Institute, and was forbidden to carry out further research. The only nation which would support his continued work was Communist China.
* Two books by journalist Paul Brodeur document the growing environmental health hazard from low-level electromagnetic radiation. The Zapping of America: Microwaves, Their Deadly Risk, and the Cover-Up (W.W. Norton, NY 1977) and Currents of Death: Powerlines, Computer Terminals and the Attempt to Cover-Up Their Threat to Your Health (Simon & Schuster, NY 1989). These books contain discussion of how individual scientists have been attacked and professionally penalized when their research documented biological effects or health problems associated with low level electromagnetic fields.
* Two books by nuclear scientist John Gofman document the growing environmental health hazard from low-level nuclear radiation (as from the daily operations of nuclear power plants) and medical x-rays: Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low Dose Exposure (Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, San Francisco 1990) and Preventing Breast Cancer (Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, San Francisco, 1996). Both books have been widely ignored by the medical and radiological communities. Gofman was once employed by the Atomic Energy Commission and was asked, along with scientist Arthur Tamplin, to evaluate the claims of the physician Ernest Sternglass, of increased cancer and infant mortality in areas downwind from nuclear test sites in Nevada. The AEC wanted a clear refutation of Sternglass, but the data instead largely verified Sternglass. For failing to tow the party line on the "safety of nuclear testing", the AEC promptly fired Gofman and Tamplin. They sued for their jobs, and back wages; after more than 10 years of litigation, they won a settlement -- but both men had long been professionally isolated in the field of radiological health physics, which continues to be dominated by "party members" with little regard, or even open contempt for the safety of the general public from low-level radiation exposures.
* Crimes of Official Science: A Casebook, by Irwin Bross (Biomedical Metatech Press, NY 1988) identifies how the atomic industry has worked to blockade evidence of health problems from low-level nuclear radiation. Bross was at one time in charge of a study evaluating health risks among workers at the nuclear facilities in Hanford, Washington. When his study began to show serious health problems among workers who had received radiation exposures below what was then thought to be "safe", he was fired. In this book, Bross covers territory broader than his own experiences.
* The Life and Trials of Gaston Naessens; Galileo of the Microscope, by Christopher Bird (Les Presses del 'Universite due la Personne, Quebec, 1990) documents the discovery and subsequent legal attack upon Naessens by the Canadian equivalent of the FDA. Naessens had observed and documented a small sub-cellular microscopical particle which he called the somatid, which was fundamental to biological processes. His discovery was apparently identical to that made earlier by Wilhelm Reich, who called these particles bions (cf. The Bion Experiments: On the Origins of Life, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY, 1975). Naessens was forbidden from practicing medicine, jailed, and his laboratory closed by policemen. Fortunately, he won his legal case, and continues with his work.
* In the 1960s, the mathematician Michel Gauquelin announced he had discovered a small but statistically significant effect of planetary positions on human behavior: Cosmic Clocks: From Astrology to Modern Science (Regenery, NY 1967) and Cosmic Influences on Human Behavior (Stein & Day, NY, 1973). Using a carefully prepared data set of birth dates and times of thousands of professionals, Gauquelin claimed that certain planets tended to appear at either zenith or on the eastern horizon at the time of birth of successful professionals who had made major contributions to their fields, a planetary configuration which was not so apparent for ordinary professionals. Saturn appeared more often at Zenith or on the east horizon at the birth-time of successful scientists, but not for ordinary science teachers. Mars appeared more often for sports champions than for sports coaches, Jupiter for famous actors, and so forth. Deemed the "Mars effect", his work was harshly attacked, and was one of the focal issues for the subsequent founding of the above-mentioned CSICOP organization. CSICOP undertook their first and only research project, an independent analysis of the Mars effect, which in fact confirmed some of Gauquelin's original findings. However, CSICOP sequestered their own confirmation, and continued to publicly attack Gauquelin, prompting several of their founding members to quit in protest (such as Marcello Truzzi). This set the stage for CSICOP and their publication Skeptical Inquirer to "attack and destroy" the work of anyone they did not like, evidence or not, and also to refuse any effective rebuttals. Gauquelin's research provided no correlations or supporting evidence for the majority of astrological claims (such as, the astrological houses) and he was openly critical of much of popular astrology, but this did not matter to his "skeptic" critics, who shamelessly continued with their wild and personal attacks. Gauquelin lost his job and became a high school science teacher for a time, but even this job was lost due to the continued malicious attacks by the "skeptics". Unemployed and dispondant, he committed suicide. (see CSICOP And the Skeptics, by Hansen, ibid)
Physical Sciences
* The Velikovsky Affair: The
Warfare of Science and Scientism, by Alfred
de Grazia (University Books, 1966) documents the totally shabby treatment given
to Immanuel Velikovsky for his writings on planetary catastrophe. Velikovsky's books Worlds in
Collision (Macmillan, NY, 1950) and Earth
in Upheaval (Doubleday, NY 1960) had
outlined historical, geological and astronomical evidence for the earth having
passed through the tail of a giant comet in ancient historical times. It was a shocking blow to the strict
uniformitarianism which dominated in the 1950s. Harlow Shapeley led an academic attack against Worlds
in Collision (even though he later
confessed to never having read it) and a successful boycott against the
textbook division of Macmillan -- which promptly dropped the Velikovsky book. Professors who sided with Velikovsky
were fired, and only derisive commentary was allowed in academic journals. Today, different writers can openly
speak about planetary catastrophes, with giant comets and asteroids hitting the
earth, extincting the dinosaurs, etc., and there is no personal attack against
them, only some rational criticism of their ideas -- but the general absence of
any citations in these modern articles or books to Velikovsky is itself a major
scientific disgrace and display of cowardice. I myself do not accept all of Velikovsky's thesis, because
my own work conflicts with parts of it (James DeMeo, Saharasia: The
4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence in
the Deserts of the Old World, OBRL, Ashand
Oregon 1998). But even a total
disagreement with Velikovsky fails to justify the malicious attacks,
"academic dirty tricks" and censorship which has prevailed over the
years.
Velikovsky's
dirty-trick attackers include such notables as Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay
Gould, both of whom are CSICOP fellows, and both of whom have engaged in
seriously unethical actions to distort his work, and prevent any effective
rebuttal. (see: Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky, by Charles Ginenthal, New Falcoln Press, Tempe
Arizona 1995, and Stephen Jay Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky: Essays
in the Continuing Velikovsky Affair, by
Charles Ginenthal, et al, Ivy Press, 1996)
* Nikola Tesla, the inventor who gave the world its presently used alternating current motors and generators, made the Westinghouse company wealthy by granting them the rights to manufacture from his patents. Later, Westinghouse took advantage of Tesla and stopped paying him royalties, leaving him at the mercy of investors to continue with his research. Funded by J.P. Morgan, Tesla worked on new generator designs, but lost this support shortly after demonstrating a new source of "free energy" electrical power from the atmosphere, as well as a new method for transmitting electrical power without the need for transmission lines (which also would have made the metering of electricity impractical or impossible). Abandoned by all whom he had made fantastically rich, Tesla died a pauper in New York city, remembered as an eccentric old man feeding the pigeons in Central Park. (see Lightning in his Hand: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla, by Inez Hunt and Wanetta Draper, Omni Publications, Hawthorne, Calif. 1964)
* The Sea of Energy in Which Earth Floats, by Henry T. Moray (Cosray Research, Salt Lake City, 1978) documents "that Moray discovered and experimentally operated a device now known as the transistor some twenty years prior to the time the Bell Laboratories did so [and Moray's] discovery was disclosed as early as 1925..." to people who later went to work with Bell Labs. Unlike the simple transistor, Moray's discovery claimed a method for extraction of energy directly from the atmosphere and earth, by "souping up" the principle of crystal radio set, and of the earth-field antenna. He was shot at, had his laboratory destroyed by government agents wielding sledge-hammers, and died a broken and bitter man. The book contains documentation and names of his attackers, as well as of the people whom he accuses of stealing his discovery.
* While this entry is surely incomplete and insufficient, it is worthwhile to mention the difficultues suffered by Pons and Fleishman, who made the claim of a "Cold Fusion" discovery. By all reasonable accounts, they were hotly attacked from the get-go, and suffered professionally for daring to make a claim which threatened the "hot fusion" industry, which has yet to produce a single kilowatt of electricity, even after decades of multi-billion-dollar government money support.(Fire from Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor, by Eugene Mallove, John Wiley & Sons, NY 1991).
* Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies, by Halton Arp (Interstellar Media Press, Berkeley, 1987) documents the censoring of Arp's criticisms of the use of galactic redshifts as astronomical distance indicators. His criticisms, if taken seriously, would be a major blow to the "big bang" theory of cosmology. Arp was a "founding father" of American astrophysics, and was partly responsible for the development of the Palomar Observatory's 200 inch telescope. In that position, he published numerous photos showing high-redshift and low-redshift galaxies and deep-space objects in close and interactive proximity to each other. Either the direct and straightforward spatial analysis of the photos had to be rejected, or redshifts were not accurate indicators of galactic distances. Arp made so many of these photos, his arguments could not be ignored. Consequently, as a means to "shut him up", he was forbidden from using the large telescopes to make any more upsetting deep space photos. His loss of job and stature was so great in the USA, he left for a position at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany. Today, the advocates of Big Bang cosmology have a clear field, and can publish whatever they like with the assurance that no effective criticisms will be given, or tolerated. (also see: The Redshift Controversy, edited by George B. Field, et al, W.A. Benjamin, Reading Mass. 1973)
* The Big Bang Never
Happened: A Startling Refutation
of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe, by Eric Lerner (Times Books, NY 1991) suggests that periods of history
characterized by widespread belief in an infinite universe, with no beginning
or end as such, are also generally revolutionary-democratic, technologically
innovative, and socially reformist and progressive. Periods of history characterized by widespread belief in the
"Big Bang" cosmology (which is an old theory, not a new one) tend to
be characterized by reactionary anti-democratic and authoritarian social
conditions. I knew this long
before reading Lerner, when I heard Pope John Paul II had given a lecture at
the CERN particle accelerator in Europe, saying "You scientists
have finally proven what we Catholics have known for nearly 2000 years."
He was alluding to the "Big Bang" theory being a
"scientific confirmation" of the Book of Genesis. In fact, there is a new book out with
this same title: Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the
Bible, by Gerald Schroeder (Bantam Books,
NY 1990) suggesting a common denominator of fundamentalist ideology in both
modern religion and modern astrophysics.
How soon until "modern science" also approves of "divine
revelation", the Inquisition and auto-da-fe?
As an aside, I will
mention a lecture given by Arno Penzias which I attended at the University of
Kansas in the 1970s. Penzias had
just got the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the 3-degree blackbody radiation
in space, which was being interpreted (in error, I reason) as a slight thermal
residue "left over from the big bang". After giving his lecture, someone asked "Dr. Penzias,
can you please tell us what existed before the big bang". His answer was (I paraphrase): "We
asked ourselves this question, about what existed before the big bang, and we
put all the data we had into our computers and ran the program backwards in
time. As best as we can determine, before the big bang: space, time, matter and
energy did not exist". Several moments of silence passed,
after which the ridiculousness of his answer caused me to break out in a big
belly laugh. I laughed for about 5
or 10 seconds until I noticed I was the only one in the room who was
laughing. This non-existence of
anything before the big bang, not space, time, matter or energy, is the
philosophical underpinning which allows a linkage between the Book of Genesis
and the big bang. With nothing in
existence, one is forced to draw upon divine intervention, as with the old
Ptolmaic astrologers. It is both
sad and ridiculous that the discipline of astronomy, which has most staunchly
defended science against any unwarranted union with "divine
revelation" today openly invites just such a shot-gun marriage. In the present case, however, the
shot-gun is aimed at anyone who would try to stop such a marriage, as both the astrophysicists and
priests are eager to consummate what will invariably give both of them even
more social status, privilege, money and power. (also see: The Cult of the Big Bang, by William Mitchell, Cosmic Sense Books, Nevada 1995)
* The Return of Common Sense: The Demise of Relativity, by Robert Henderson (Common Sense Press, 1992) is one of many books making an effective critical rebuttal of the Einstein's theory of relativity. While acknowledging Einstein as a humanitarian and scholar, his work on relativity has also been a "protected theory" for which journal editors do not allow effective criticisms to be published.
* Harold Dudley's critiques of relativity theory, and certain aspects of quantum theory and radiation biophysics are also noteworthy: The Morality of Nuclear Planning?? (Kronos Press, Glassboro, NJ 1976) and New Principles in Quantum Dynamics (Exposition-University Press, NY 1959) identify fatal flaws and opposing evidence for the modern theories of nuclear decay, relativity and quantum dynamics.
* Ethical Probe on Einstein's Followers in the USA, by Ruggero Santilli (Alpha Publishing 1984) contains a documentation of the author's personal experiences with loss of funding and employment after his research findings threatened parts of relativity theory. He names names, and gives an excellent overview of constructive ideas on what might be done to correct these problems, of preventing or actively addressing breaches in scientific ethics by scientists within the mainstream power structure. For awhile, Santilli edited a new journal Scientific Ethics, which attempted to expose such problems in a more systematic manner, but there were so few subscribers (less than 100) the journal lasted only a few years. Santilli eventually left the USA for Europe.
* Dayton Miller's work ether-drift was far more in-depth and precise than what was undertaken by the better-known team of Michelson-Morley. And unlike them, Miller obtained positive evidence for ether, with a determination of the axis of the earth's ether-drift through cosmic space. His work shattered the myth of the constancy of the speed of light, showing it is variant depending upon direction in cosmic space, and thereby defeating the more popular relativity theory of Albert Einstein. Miller was never critically reviewed or defeated when he was alive, but was politically opposed and isolated. After his death, his work was misrepresented in scientific journals by relativity advocates, and the whole subject of ether-drift was compared to "the search for perpetual motion." In recent years, new ether-drift experiments have been conducted by Yuri Galaev at the Radiophysics Institute of the Ukraine, and by Reginald Cahill at Flinders University in Australia, both of whom have confirmed an ether and ether-drift, confirming the Miller result "down to the details". The entire subject remains obliterated from open discussion in academic journals, however. See: James DeMeo, Dayton Miller's Ether-Drift Research: A Fresh Look, Pulse of the Planet #5, 2002.
Related Themes
* Scientific Fraud and
Misconduct (AAAS, Washington DC 1989) is a
mainstream publication discussing outright cheating and fabrication of data by
mainstream scientists. As such, it
does not touch upon the issue of the repression of new findings by the
mainstream. But it does suggest
that those at the top (or who are clawing and back-stabbing their way to the top), who are
too-often willing to heap abuse and poison on those below themselves, are
sometimes willing to take the additional unethical step and fabricate
data to make themselves look all the
better. Like the worst of our political leaders, it should not be too
surprising to realize, those who place political power and money at a higher
level of importance than facts or truth turn out to be not-so-good scientists. This is not to say that the leadership ranks of modern scientific institutions are uniformly composed of this rancid and unethical type of character... but if all I have detailed and documented above is true, we are left to wonder openly about their silence in the face of such things. Why are the more ethical and honest scientists in the top positions not screaming at the top of their voices, not using their editorial and "bully platform" positions to address these problems more openly and aggressively? Surely they do become loud and critical when outright cheating takes place, as with the outright fabrication of data. But when some isolated scientist or medical pioneer is gang-attacked in the press, in science journals, or even by the police, for daring to openly question some Holy Cow of science, some politically-protected and gigantically-funded idea, they suddenly lose their voice, and by their silence give tacit approval to the unethical deluge. One is then led to conclude, how hollow are all words about "academic freedom" or "freedom of inquiry" as uttered by leaders within the major institutions of science.
Commentary * The FDA raids upon
professional scientists and physicians, discussed above, are matched or
exceeded when the FDA and local medical authorities decide to go after the parents of a sick child which is not being treated according to conventional orthodox prescriptions. If a parent wants to try the Gerson
method, or Vitamin C therapy, or some other approach to help their child
overcome a cancer, physicians are known to collude with local prosecutors and
judges to have the child taken into "protective custody" and then
forcibly given the orthodox poisons.
If the parents disobey the court, they can be jailed for contempt and
their children taken away permanently by Social Services. The same thing can happen where people refuse the quack "AIDS tests". Medical doctors, above all others, have become an New Priesthood, establishing a New Inquisition with political power by which they can force their opinions -- accurate or not -- literally down the throats of ordinary people. The background fact which makes these examples so
significant, is that for most of the orthodox treatments for cancer and
degenerative illness, there is no conclusive or clear proof the orthodox
treatments actually work to bring people back to health at a rate faster than
doing nothing. In most cases, the
"side effects" of the touted "treatments" are better proven
than are the supposed benefits. Cure rates for cancer have remained low
and insignificant for decades, except in cases where "official quackery"
is applied to twist the statistical data.
This is most often done by broadening the diagnostic criteria for
certain illnesses, allowing more and more healthy people to be classified as
"sick" -- and since healthy people are stronger than really sick people,
they can withstand the rigors of chemotherapy, radiation or surgery at higher
rates. The data pools are thereby
skewed with higher "survival rates", making "treatment"
appear more favorable than if only really sick people were being poisoned. The latest surgical fads based upon
unscientific "genetic" calculations are a part of this toxic
calculus: "preventative mastectomies" and "preventative
colostomies" are today being undertaken on thousands of completely healthy
young and old people each year.
They are being lined up in the "best hospitals" for ghoulish
surgeries as "preventative therapy for cancer" based upon highly
questionable and unproven methods of genetic evaluation. None of the surgeon-doctors, who
perform mutilating colostomies and breast-amputation surgery on totally healthy
teenagers, have ever been attacked or even mildly criticized by the AMA or
FDA. (for more data and examples
on this subject, see James DeMeo, "Modern Medical-Genetic Quackery"
and "Modern Horrific Medicine" in Pulse of the Planet, 4:161-165, 1993.) * If today you are labeled a
"quack" you are pushed "beyond the pale" of constitutional
protections originally conceived as applying to every citizen. The pronouncements of "medical
authorities" on the evening news, to attack and dismiss the ideas of the
medical pioneer ("quack"), to boost up the unproven benefits of hospital care and medical doctoring, and all of the pharmacy drugs which now even appear in advertisements, are never challenged and are treated as ex
cathedra pronouncements of fact. By contrast, no orthodox psychiatrist I know has
ever been attacked and jailed as a "drug pusher" for writing multiple
ritalin prescriptions for children, even though approximately 10% of all US
schoolboys are now junked-up on that toxic drug (which is far worse than pot), and
for which there is no scientifically defendable evidence for its rumored
efficacy against the equally unscientific diagnosis of
"Attention-Defecit-Hyperactivity-Disorder". Postscript 2007 A new article of merit on these same subjects recently came to my attention: Brian Martin, "Suppression of Dissent in Science", Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 7, edited by William R. Freudenburg and Ted I. K. Youn (Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1999), pp. 105-135. Available on-line: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/99rsppp.html
Author/Researcher Brian Martin has other writings as well, organized and available here:
Additional Articles and Materials:
* Click here to review and/or purchase books by James DeMeo. * The Orgone Biophysical Research Lab: James DeMeo's Research Website.
* The Saharasia web page.
* The Complete OBRL / Natural Energy Works On-line Bookstore and Product Shop
ABSTRACT: There are numerous documented cases of attacks on dissident scientists, yet there is no established body of literature or standard theoretical frameworks for dealing with this phenomenon. Cases in three contentious areas - pesticides, fluoridation, and nuclear power - are used to illustrate processes and patterns of suppression. The evidence in these areas shows the possibilities and difficulties in drawing links between suppression and corporate, professional, and state power, respectively. Studies of suppression can provide a convenient probe into the exercise of power in science and more generally into the dynamics of expertise and legitimacy in a technological society.
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/supp.html
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