Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Frey Effect, Continued: Dr. Beatrice Golomb
14 Plays5 years ago
Dr. Beatrice Golomb describes her paper, "Diplomats’ Mystery Illness and Pulsed Radiofrequency/ Microwave Radiation" which details the evidence for the theory that the Frey Effect is responsible for the Cuban embassy incident in 2016. She also details the (mis)handling of the New York Times story that popularized this claim as a leading theory of the incident.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Dr. Beatrice Gollom
00:00:03
Speaker
Today we have with us Dr. Beatrice Gollom. Dr. Gollom is a professor of medicine at UC San Diego where she focuses her research on conditions related to oxidative stress and cell energy impairments.
Exploration of Diplomatic Illness Paper
00:00:16
Speaker
She's the author of the paper that we discussed today entitled Diplomats, Mystery Illness and Pulsed Radio Frequency Microwave Radiation. Thanks for joining us today Dr. Gollom.
00:00:27
Speaker
It's my pleasure.
Hypotheses on Microwave Radiation Impact
00:00:29
Speaker
So I wanted to start by asking you if you could describe why the Cuban diplomatic incident was of interest to you, and then how you came to the conclusion that microwave radiation might have been the cause of the symptoms that you see in the embassy employees. Well, I think that from the time that reports first began to come out, describing both the characteristics of the symptoms
00:00:55
Speaker
and the unusual sounds that were reported by a number of diplomats, the sort of hypothesis that this might be microwave radiation sort of was evident. And then as more specific information came out, you know, relating to the character of the sounds particularly, you know, that began to feel as though it was the only possible explanation.
00:01:24
Speaker
Normal sound is air pressure waves, and microwave radiation is electromagnetic waves. And electromagnetic waves don't normally lead to the perception of sound, but they can in the setting of pulsed radio frequency and microwave radiation. And the characteristics of regular sound and of the perceived quote sound, unquote, with microwave radiation
Link Between Microwave Radiation and Symptoms
00:01:54
Speaker
differ in certain characteristics. So first of all, only certain sound characteristics are perceived with microarrays. And these include things like chirping or buzzing or hissing or clanging. And each of these and only ones that have been reported with microirradiation are ones that were described by diplomats.
00:02:23
Speaker
If there were a sonic source, a sound source, there would be no particular reason to hypothesize that there would be different character of perceived sounds for different diplomats. So the fact that the sounds were different already is interesting and points away from sound, but the specific character of sounds pushes that much further. Next is the fact that, according to news reports, these sounds were heard almost exclusively at night.
00:02:52
Speaker
The microwave auditory effect, even when it's perceived to be loud, can only occur in a setting of low ambient noise. So if this were not the case, it would exclude microwave radiation as the source of these perceived sounds. It was reported in news media that individuals, that the sound seemed to be tightly localized in space, which was said to defy known physics. Well, defy physics of sound, but it doesn't defy physics of radiation. This quote unquote laser-like localization
00:03:21
Speaker
is not only possible, but lasers are, in fact, a form of electromagnetic radiation. And so it was represented that the same individual, when they moved a little bit, the noise would go away. And when they moved back, the noise was back. Again, a loud noise, in some cases, would seem to disappear with a short movement in space, like getting out of bed and return when the original localization was restored.
00:03:47
Speaker
And in other instances, one person would hear a sound and someone nearby would not hear the same sound. So there was each of these features and other ones, like five of the diplomats reported covering their ears, and this did not attenuate the sound, which would be expected again for microwave auditory effect, but not for sound. So all of these features fit as predictions or expectations
00:04:14
Speaker
with sound emanating from, with perceived sound, it's not really sound, emanating from microwaves, from pulse records specifically, but not from actual
Historical Context of Embassy Microwave Incidents
00:04:25
Speaker
sound. So the next characteristic that almost forces the conclusion is the profile of symptoms that were reported in the diplomats, which included sleep problems, headache and cognitive problems at the top with somewhat lower but still high rates of dizziness, tinnitus,
00:04:44
Speaker
irritability, and some other symptoms. And essentially, in order, these are the same symptoms in very close percentages as has been reported for people who experience health problems with radiation, often microwave, radio frequency radiation, but not exclusively. And we're interested in conditions that are often multi-symptom,
00:05:11
Speaker
And I know of no other condition that causes this profile of symptoms in a similar sort of frequency spectrum. So we compared the rates of reported symptoms in the Cuban diplomats to those reported in people with electromagnetic sensitivity in a study in Japan, and 81% headaches, 81% headaches, 81% cognitive problems, 81% cognitive problems, similar rates of sleep problems, tinnitus, dizziness, et cetera.
00:05:41
Speaker
And then the final characteristic of interest is that it is known that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow had been microwaved beginning in the 1950s and continuing for several decades. And in that instance, U.S. personnel in the embassy reported health problems. There was a study commissioned, but they weren't really analyzed until many of them had been long out of the embassy.
00:06:09
Speaker
And it produced some significant findings of relevance to what is known about microwave effects.
Vulnerability to Radiation
00:06:15
Speaker
But overall, it was a sort of equivocal study. The other problem with that study was that the control group that was used were diplomats in other Eastern European embassies, which is the group most likely to have also been exposed. And indeed, evidence emerged later that some of those individuals had been exposed. So the character of the, quote, unexposed control group was not necessarily unexposed.
00:06:38
Speaker
And the, quote, exposed group was often long after their exposure in that study. Good. Well, that's a great summary. And I thank you for your carefully researched paper. One follow-up question on that is, I know that there are some suggestions that microwave radiation of the level that can cause an auditory
00:07:02
Speaker
It doesn't need to be high enough energy so that it would cause neurological damage. You mentioned that the US embassy in Russia, with diplomats there, there were some neurological effects that were documented.
00:07:22
Speaker
So I wonder how you would respond to the idea that the level of stimulation that you need for auditory percepts is not necessarily enough to cause neurological damage. Well, you know, I would agree that that is likely the case. The issue of neurological damage involves several considerations. An important one is that not everyone who is equally exposed is equally affected.
00:07:50
Speaker
And we see this in the civilian community very strongly. And there are data that help us to understand why that is the case. I mean, first of all, it's the case with any exposure that has adverse effects. Not everyone responds equally. But in the case of radiation specifically, there was a study that was an Italian-Russian collaboration that looked at genetic factors related to oxidative stress defense.
00:08:18
Speaker
and showed that people who were sensitive to radiation indeed were significantly more likely to have gene variants of genes important for this accident as just a sense that conferred less protection. A study in France by Bell-Palm that looked at about 700 people that report health effects with radiation, same levels of radiation that don't cause problems in other people, found many characteristics
00:08:45
Speaker
in these individuals, but the one that was consistent across them was depressed levels of melatonin as assessed by a urinary retabolite of melatonin. And people think of melatonin as just for sleep, but in fact, melatonin is one of the critical antioxidant systems in the body, and there are literally scores of studies that have shown protection by melatonin against radiation injury really across the electromagnetic spectrum, whether it's the quote, extremely low
00:09:15
Speaker
frequency radiation that you get with power lines up through radio frequency radiation, gamma radiation, x-ray radiation, ultraviolet radiation. Melatonin is a critical protective system.
Radiation's Effect on Melatonin
00:09:29
Speaker
There are studies that indicate that in some people radiation actually itself depresses melatonin and some of the mechanisms by which that may occur are known. But this does not seem to occur equally in all individuals.
00:09:45
Speaker
And what may be going on is that in a subset of people, exposure or repeated exposure depresses these defenses and also may not be the only antioxidant system that is depressed with exposure and that renders individuals more vulnerable to developing neurological and other effects of radiation.
00:10:06
Speaker
Oh, very interesting. Maybe you could say just a word about, maybe just a brief word about the mechanisms that radiation might have to suppress melatonin. Well, there are a couple of them. One is within the cells that are producing the melatonin, there is an impairment of the conversion of serotonin to melatonin.
00:10:34
Speaker
And some studies show elevation of serotonin and depression of melatonin. But it's also the case that a factor that is increased in a number of affected people is histamine. And it is known that histamine through a specific histamine receptor can actually lead to what amounts to degradation of the pineal gland where melatonin is produced. Yes, okay.
00:11:01
Speaker
So that's really interesting, and that's something I hadn't gotten before, but that seems to make a lot of sense.
00:11:08
Speaker
Great.
Credit for Microwave Radiation Theory
00:11:09
Speaker
Well, again, thanks for the really well-documented paper that discusses what seems to be the most likely cause of these events. I also wanted to see if I could get a comment from you, maybe as this is an outlet for some of your concerns that you had about the lack of credit that was given to you for coming up with this theory, especially
00:11:32
Speaker
in the way that it was presented in the September 1st issue of the New York Times. Maybe you could say a word or two about how this might have been mishandled. Right. Well, I think the main features that lead me to feel sort of abused in this setting were that this came to the New York Times through my work, an op-ed that I wrote
00:11:58
Speaker
and was submitted by me and the second time around coauthored by Frank Clegg who is the head of Canadian for State Technology and the former president of Microsoft Canada. That letter outlined this theory and included the many citations. I was called by, this was passed without my consent to a reporter at the New York Times.
00:12:24
Speaker
although not with specific malfusions by the New York Times. I won't go into how that happened. And he looked up the references, including the Glaser reports in the 1970s. The 1971 report, for example, had about over 2300 citations, specifically delineating health effects of radio frequency radiation with whole chapters on many of the effects reported by diplomats.
00:12:50
Speaker
And when I first spoke with him, I told him it wasn't really my goal that my hard work and insights become someone else's story. And he reassured me that that wouldn't happen and that the focus would be on my work. And that's not ultimately what happened. It was sort of implied that I was late to the game and that my contribution was incremental. And perhaps the main credit went to the University of Pennsylvania's Douglas Smith.
00:13:16
Speaker
who clearly did not come to this first or independently, the New York Times reporter was aware that I had sent a letter also outlining the rationale for this hypothesis also with over 90 citations in January of 2018 to Dr. Rosenfarb, the top doctor at the State Department, who said that it made for very interesting reading and that he would distribute it.
00:13:43
Speaker
And shortly thereafter, the paper by the diplomats' doctors came out in which radio frequency radiation and microwave radiation were never mentioned once in the whole article. It was suggested that it could be psychogenic or various other hypotheses, but this hypothesis was never mentioned.
Media Dynamics and Gender Bias in Science
00:14:01
Speaker
So it's clear that this was not on their radar, so to speak, prior to that letter to Rosenfarb. And New York Times reporter was very well aware of this. William Brand was aware of this.
00:14:14
Speaker
copies of that letter to Rosenfarb and the response by Rosenfarb. In his response to me, when I objected to the characterization, he said, oh, but, you know, other people, specifically James Lynn, you know, published on the first. Well, he published the idea that he did not publish, you know, a defense of the idea there was not a single citation related to health effect
00:14:42
Speaker
It was not in the scientific publication, incidentally. He has a column in microwave news that he's able to use for those kinds of things. The timing was not that he had the idea first, but I'm happy to have him have credit for sharing the idea, but what matters is an idea that's represented in a way that is compelling. There's a reason that the idea did not have traction at the time it was presented by him.
00:15:10
Speaker
because it didn't have the specific characteristics that tie the microwave auditory effect to the effects perceived by diplomats and it didn't have information about the health effects or specific citations giving credence to the idea that such radiation could cause the specific health effects that were reported. So I actually communicated with a journalism professor who had himself been a journalist for 20 years.
00:15:37
Speaker
he said that most of the forms of recourse that were once available are no longer available uh... new york under the house of ombudsman uh... this is primarily because print news media you know are much less lucrative than they used to be and he mentioned an incident that he himself experience in which a woman with the lead author on something she was the one who had written an op ed on the topic she was the canadian and that lead canadian newspaper
00:16:07
Speaker
the Globe and Mail had run a story implying that he was the lead party. So I don't know if this is a phenomenon in which a paradigm shifting idea in a technical field prefers to be credited to men or if there are other factors going on here. But I did feel misused by the process. And William Broad had asked if he could have an exclusive in relation to my article that was coming out.
00:16:36
Speaker
And given his representations, I said yes. The New York Times moved their story by a day. We had timed the press release at UC San Diego to be the same day as his paper so that he would have his exclusives. But because New York Times moved theirs by a day, our press release came out one day earlier. And we had a lot of interest that day, including by two different New York Times supporters. And all of these individuals I told, I have to wait until this New York Times article comes out.
00:17:03
Speaker
But once it came out there was no longer any interest because it was no longer my story. All the interest went to Doug Smith, the University of Pennsylvania doctor who was mischaracterized as having come to this sort of apparently first and apparently independently. And who incidentally hadn't published anything related to this in any venue.
00:17:24
Speaker
OK, so thank you very much for coming on the podcast. And again, I appreciate your thorough description of causes for the embassy attack and also being able to get out your version of how the story was handled. Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.