The environment is now thoroughly polluted by man-made sources of electromagnetic radiation with frequencies and magnitudes never before present. Man?s activities have probably changed the earth?s electromagnetic background to a greater degree than they have changed any other natural physical attribute of the earth. The evidence now indicates that the present abnormal electromagnetic environment constitutes a significant health risk. There are also positive aspects of the relationship between electromagnetism and life. Clinical uses of electromagnetic energy are increasing and promise to expand into important areas in the near future. This book synthesizes the various aspects of the role of electricity in biology.

Electromagnetism and Life

Politics & Social Sciences

Becker, Robert O.

Marino, Andrew A.

Sociology

Cassandra

Going Somewhere is a dynamic autobiographical narrative about Andrew Marino's career in science. With a depth and drama that arise from personal involvement, the book explores an exceptionally wide range of science-related matters: the relation between electrical energy and life; the influence of corporate and military power on science; the role of self-interest on the part of federal and state agencies that deal with human health, especially the NIH and the FDA; the importance of cross-examining scientific experts in legal hearings; the erroneous view of nature that results when the perspective of physics is extended into biology; the pivotal role of deterministic chaos theory in at least some cognitive processes. These matters arise in the long course of the author's scientific and legal activities involving the complex debate over the health risks of man-made environmental electromagnetic fields. The book offers far more than a solution to the contentious health issue. The story provides a portal into how science actually works, which you will see differs dramatically from the romantic notion of an objective search for truth. You will understand that science is a human enterprise, all too human, inescapably enmeshed in uncertainty. This realization has the potential to change your life because it will likely affect whom you choose to believe, and with what degree of confidence.

Going Somewhere: Truth about a Life in Science

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

The Electric Wilderness is an exposé of the politics of science as it was and is being applied in New York State's assessment of large powerline health effects. Clearly and concisely written, this is a history worth reading by anyone concerned about the potential dangers of electromagnetic fields.Spurred by the concerns of an engineer working on a 765 kilovolt (kV) power line proposed by Niagara Mohawk and Rochester Gas & Electric and a Power Authority (PASNY) plan for a major 765 kV link with Canada, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) established a hearing process in 1974 to determine if such powerlines could cause adverse health effects.The central witnesses in the hearings were Andrew Marino, a research scientist, and Robert O. Becker. Becker was, at the time, director of the research laboratoryof the Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse and Marino's boss.Becker is a pioneer in studying the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. His work through the years convinced him that electromagnetic radiation such as that emanating from energized powerlines would have an effect upon the body's electrical signals. Under Becker, Marino has conducted specific studies that demonstrated stunted growth in mice that had been bred and raised in electromagnetic fields similar to those under a 765 kV powerline.PASNY and the other utilities who decided to participate in the case brought in their hired guns to refute Marino and Becker. The outright bias of the pro-utility witnesses and the credibility they were given by the Administrative Law Judge hearing the case were shameful. Yet some serious vested interests wanted the PSC hearing to come to naught.First, the Power Authority did not want health effects proven. They had been so confident that the PSC would rubber stamp their application to build a 765 kV line from the Canadian border near Massena to Marcy near Utica that they had actually begun purchasing materials for the line and negotiating contracts with Quebec for electricity before the PSC had granted them a license.Second, electric utilities in New York and around the country were not interested in a finding that powerlines might cause health effects. The impact on their industry would be far reaching. The utilities were unperturbed that after 80 years of use there had yet to be a systematic study of potential health effects of overhead powerlines. They exerted the power of their trade associations to present a united front against Marino and Becker.Finally the U.S. Navy, not a direct participant in the PSC case, was a player in the controversy. The Navy has a history of suppressing evidence and abandoning research that has demonstrated that electromagnetic fields cause health effects.The Electric Wilderness traces the history ofthe subverted research and the attempts to discredit Becker and Marino throughout the PSC hearing. It is a chilling tale that condemns the ethics and intellectual integrity of many leaders of the science establishment in the United States.As a result of their testimony not only did Marino and Becker lose their ability to get grants or have their work published in trade journals, but the entire research lab at the Syracuse V.A. hospital was shut down.In the end, the PSC could not completely ignore the facts of the matter. Marino had uncovered over 40 previous studies that linked electromagnetic radiation to health effects. While the PSC did not give Marino the satisfaction of citing his work as a reason for their decision, they did establish a five-year, $5 million study of potential health effects. The Electric Wilderness is an important and well written book. It tells how powerful special interests can control the output of so-called scientific investigation. It also demonstrates how important it is for individuals with integrity to persist in seeking the truth. - Dick Hermans, Pine Plains

The Electric Wilderness

Science & Math

Ray, Joel

Earth Sciences

Robert O. Becker's biological research, some of the most deeply probing of the 20th century, grew directly from two closely related questions that few have dared to ask, much less base a major research effort on answering them: 1) what is the difference between living and dead? and 2) how does self-healing occur, so that the organism stays alive? That Becker asked these questions was determined, in large part, by his decision to become a doctor. His unusually strong purpose to heal and protect drove his research decisions to investigate biological regeneration and to study the detrimental effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). He discovered the voltages that humans shared with regenerating salamanders, and that would finally be understood, in his brilliant insight and reasoning, as the sign of internal currents that controlled self-healing and growth and even biological rhythms. Becker's strength of purpose as a doctor encouraged him above all to work for the replacement of reductionist, part-by-part biology, with a systemic view of the organism that would recognize and make use of the body's ability to heal itself, and such holism was a direct threat to established biological wisdom. Some of the gravely irritating disputes he had with nonmedical scientists, especially physicists, can perhaps be understood as conflicts with people driven by very different purposes (or hardly driven, except by untethered curiosity or, even worse, careerism). He made missteps and was temporarily derailed more than once, but the picture he developed of how life persisted within the organism by means of internal electromagnetic controls became more and more inclusively and convincingly articulated. The research history as recounted herein by Becker's colleague and most ardent and accomplished student, Andrew Marino, constitutes a thrilling intellectual adventure. (See especially Chapter 4 for one of the great narratives of science-in-the-making.) His research connected humans to the natural electromagnetic environment, and that insight led to a recognition that exposure to unregulated artificial EMFs--indeed, including those used in medicine by some of his colleagues--might be hazardous. Becker's determined involvement in the public disputes that followed angered many powerful people and, finally, they assured that his medical and biological research would not continue. In 1980 he lost all funding and his dual search for a new view of human biology and a new role for medicine ended. This book is the story of a tragedy in the classical sense; certain of Becker's personality traits that made for great strengths as a researcher became, in a new atmosphere of contention and threat, mortal flaws that he could not correct in order to save himself and his work. Though he published and spoke widely, his insights were too challenging for the establishment to accept, and his 20-year effort, instead of inspiring a new generation of researchers, resounded as though in an empty room. His discoveries and insights yet remain to be elaborated and championed. Readers will see that Becker's tragic flaws--they might be summed up as a kind of principled stubbornness--repeatedly undermined the reception of his basic research, as we infer when Marino several times patiently offers heartfelt and intelligent tactical advice that Becker rejects out of hand. These are painful sections to read. They are urgings for Becker to become, in effect, a different person, and they are vainly proffered. Marino's gripping narrative fully documents one of the most important research efforts of the past century. It proceeds forcefully from multiple evolving tensions to describe a heroic quest in an unheroic time. Joel Ray

Becker the Researcher

Marino, Andrew

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