About Elisabeth Cardis (Interphone study) Conflict of Interest in the past and now?

http://www.nirs.org/mononline/appendixinbeirletter1.htm
 

Imbalance and Conflict-of-Interest

in BEIR VII Phase 2 Committee Membership

............
 
ELISABETH CARDIS. Dr. Cardis is the lead author of one of the studies most frequently cited by the nuclear industry as supposed support for its claim that low-dose radiation risks are overstated. The pooled study has been widely criticized for combining non-comparable data sets and a number of other methodological problems, including diluting positive findings for particular cancers from one facility with data from facilities with different cancers due to different radiation exposure pathways. However, none of the critics of the Cardis et al. study have been permitted on the panel, while two of her co-authors (Gilbert and Howe) are on it. The IARC study combined data from 7 nuclear facilities in three countries despite the paper by Kneale and Stewart which showed that even Hanford and Oak Ridge data are not compatible. (Kneale & Stewart, "Factors affecting recognition of cancer risks of nuclear workers", Occup & Environ Med 1995,52, 515-523.) Cardis and two co-authors of the study are on the panel, but Kneale and Stewart are not. Furthermore, no scientists who studies have reached contrary conclusions have permitted on the panel. It is hard to see how a panel can be considered balanced when three authors of a single study widely pointed to by the nuclear industry will be judging the implications and validity of their own work as well as that of scientists who have reached contrary conclusions, while the critics of the Cardis et al. study and the experts whose research found strong radiation effects are excluded.
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From: pedro belmonte espejo
Date: Friday, March 20, 2009 1:27 pm
Subject: two new questions to Elisabeth Cardis

 
Dear Dr. Elisabeth Cardis:

I am very grateful to you for the e-mail responding to my question about the Interphone study. Thank you very much. Please, let me ask you two new questions:

What do you mean by a short period of time for delivery of the manuscript of the international analyses for publication? (a month, a year?).

You are a member of the so-called Spanish Comité Cientifico Asesor sobre Radiofrecuencias (Scientific Advisory Committee on Radiofrequencies) http://www.ccars.es/composicion.htm , a group that refuses that public exposure to RF and microwave has not biological effects. Some of its members have been experts of the mobile operators trials emission antenna.

Do you not think that being a member of this group can not be a true bias or conflict of interest in its work of coordination in the Interpone study?

Best regards

Pedro Belmonte
ELF Committee
ECOLOGISTAS EN ACCIÓN

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