Jim Robinson
Posted on 02/15/2012 11:58:03 AM PST by fishtank
Lawrence Solomon: The fallout of the Nobel scam of 1946
Scientist’s radiation cover-up might have cost thousands of lives
Why do most people today, scientists included, believe that small doses of radiation are harmful to human health when no proof for this theory exists, and when mountains of evidence show the opposite — that small amounts of radiation actually promote health? After years of sleuthing into historical records, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts has found a smoking gun, involving a scientific scam in 1946 at the very highest echelons — the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm.
In an august Nobel hall one year after the end of the Second World War, the scientific world was knowingly misled by Hermann J. Muller, winner that year of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. This is the verdict from a forensic review entitled Muller’s Nobel Prize Lecture: When Ideology Prevailed Over Science, just published by the Society of Toxicology in the Oxford University Press’s Toxicological Sciences. Had Muller spoken the truth and revealed the existence of contradictory research in the world’s most prominent scientific gathering, we might today have an entirely different view of radiation and its effects, preventing immense human suffering and the loss of countless lives.
Prior to the Second World War, the world of medicine saw radiation as a life-giving therapy as well as a diagnostic tool: Ordinary X-ray machines were widely used to zap more than two dozen different types of infections, gangrene among them, miraculously eliminating the need to amputate limbs. But science didn’t understand how exactly radiation worked its wonders, leading to conjecture that radiation, a known killer at very high doses, might do harm as well as good. One theory that arose held that radiation also killed at low doses, only in smaller proportions. This theory — that there is no safe dose for radiation — became the focus of a hot dispute, with one medical camp accepting it, the other rejecting it, and both investigating it.
Muller was in the ascendant “no safe dose” camp that claimed that there is no threshold below which radiation stops being harmful. As he told the distinguished attendees in Stockholm in accepting his Nobel Prize, the evidence now leaves “no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold dose” of radiation. It was a convincing performance in the world’s most prestigious scientific gathering, except Muller himself knew that statement to be unsupportable. The historical evidence, as uncovered by Edward Calabrese, the author of the forensic review, leaves no escape from the conclusion that Muller was engaged in duplicity. Advertisement
Five weeks before Muller delivered his Nobel acceptance speech, he had received a manuscript from Prof. Curt Stern, a prominent radiation geneticist who had headed a project for the Manhattan Project that had also employed Muller as a consultant. The manuscript confirmed an earlier study that demonstrated a safe dose. Muller responded to Stern in a private letter, saying he had no dispute with the study but felt that its findings were so significant to the debate that the new study needed to be replicated as soon as possible, a major undertaking that would take a year.
Muller then went to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize as if the manuscript had never existed. Another several weeks and Muller again wrote Stern, to again impress on him the importance of replicating the manuscript’s findings. As Calabrese’s expose reveals, Muller not only convinced the Nobel Prize assemblage that the science was settled on the danger of low levels of radiation, he also succeeded in marginalizing the Stern manuscript, effectively thwarting important lines of inquiry. Score one giant victory for scientific deception, one giant loss for truth in science.
What harm was done by Muller’s false assertion in Stockholm? Although the scientific world has recently rediscovered the benefits of low levels of radiation in a growing discipline called radiation hormesis — universities now offer courses in hormesis and scientific journals publish an increasing number of hormesis studies — Muller’s role in derailing research over many decades is undeniable. The costs have been incalculable. As good as antibiotics have been, for example, they continue to underperform the pre-Second World War success rate of X-ray therapy in preventing amputations and deaths from gangrene. Studies also show that routine exposure to low levels of radiation act as a tonic, dramatically preventing numerous diseases, including major killers such as heart disease and cancer.
Muller is now dead and buried, along with perhaps thousands, perhaps millions who met an untimely death in part because of him.
Financial Post LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.
To read the expose of Hermann Muller, click here.
I had to slightly modify the title so it would fit.
Pfl.
So now x-rays are bad and should not be provided under obamacare.
It’s not that hard to believe ionizing radiation is bad for you. It’s destroys or alters chemicals that your body uses. Thinking it is helpful is almost like the idea that randomly banging places in your house with a hammer is going to improve the house.
I assume you are claiming that the very idea of hormesis is junk science. Yet there is a great deal of evidence, which continues to grow, that hormesis is real for radiation and for many toxins, perhaps most toxins.
If true, it might possibly provide an indication of a mechanism by which homeopathy might work, which I know from indisputable personal experience can be remarkably effective, though I have no idea of the mechanism.
Hormesis is after, merely a variant of the oldest and best documented principle of toxicology: The dose is the poison.
I wondered about the workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant that went in and worked on the disabled plant. The MSM told us that the Fukushima 200 would all die in a matter of days. I wonder if they survived.
“It’s not that hard to believe...”
Even if the facts are against that belief?
It’s not that hard to believe releasing CO2 causes global warming.
It is for me. Levels are 392 Parts per million. That means one molecule out of 25000 is Carbon Dioxide.Not enough for much of an effect. It's that small because life loves the stuff and pulls it out of the air. ( On Venus and Mars CO2 is a majority gas. Why? Because they are lifeless) More Carbon Dioxide actually leads to more life , not less
Another "political" scientist! Does anyone know where this fraud is buried?? I might make a side trip especially to urinate on his gravesite.
That used to work very well for my old TV.
I can see a mechanism where it does help. Doing a little damage turns on the bodies repair response which also fixes stuff that was messed up by something else but not enough to be noticed. Like the increased vigilance of wartime picking up spies that were able to lay low for a long time but could not hide from the increased scrutiny. The analogy with houses fails because houses can’t heal themselves.
Surely you jest.
“junk-science” would imply poor or biased evidence gathering, rather than controlled studies.
“disputed science” would imply sound evidence exists that is contrary to a widely held theory.
start here:
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/inthorm.html
Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin, Rachel Carson and now Hermann Mueller. You guys are on my list!
That’s no reason to call me Shirley
I find this interesting. I was 3 or 4 years old, sometime during WWII, and had the whooping cough. My mother took me to a hospital the Navy had set up for the civilians. I was given a radiation treatment to “dry up” the gunk in my lungs. Must have worked...I’m a healthy 72 now.
Don’t forget Al Gore and global warming.
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