ISIS Press Release 21/11/07
 Science in Society #36 - Letters to the Editor
Write us and tell the world about yourself
Science in Society 36 - Subscribe here http://www.i-sis.org.uk/subscribe
AIDS vaccines dangerous and trials unethical
With regard to your article about the clinical trial of the
Merck’s AIDS vaccine (New Strategy HIV Vaccine
Fails, SiS 36), you will
be interested to know that the same happened not so long ago in the clinical
trials of VaxGen’s AIDS vaccine.
I have been warning over the past 15 years that AIDS vaccines
are not only inefficient, but also harmful. For that reason, I have called repeatedly for a moratorium
on clinical trials of AIDS vaccines and for reevaluation of the current AIDS
vaccine strategy (Veljkovic et al Vaccine 2001,1855; Lancet
2003, 361, 1743).
It is important to note that increased susceptibility to HIV
infection is not only the problem with AIDS vaccines. The most important problem
for volunteers is possible acceleration of diseases progression after infection.
It is also of note that the EU AIDS
vaccine developed in the FP6 for clinical trials in South Africa is also an adenovirus- vectored vaccine (Controversy Over European
Framework Programme AIDS Vaccines, SiS 36).
Unfortunately, clinical trials
of dangerous AIDS vaccine candidates continue because money and politic are
placed above scientific arguments. It is especially dangerous that companies
refuse to release the data from clinical trials, because this could “compromise”
further AIDS research. I agree with you that the release of clinical trials
data must now be made mandatory.
Dr. Veljko Veljkovic,
Director, Center for Multidisciplinary Research, Institute of Nuclear Sciences
VINCA, Belgrade, Serbia
Cold Fusion a Hit
Congratulations on your excellent articles concerning Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
(LENRs) (Cold
Fusion Hots Up series, SiS 36). You have done a remarkable job in
making arcane, controversial, highly technical subject matter comprehensible
to a broad audience. ISIS clearly spent a great deal of time and effort doing
background research and fact checking. Your hard work shows vividly in the high
quality of the final product.
I have some minor issues about certain aspects
of what you have written in these articles. For example, Allan Widom and I
do not believe that there are energetically significant amounts of D-D fusion
going-on in LENR systems. In our view, energy production in LENR systems
is dominated by the weak interaction (ultra low momentum neutron production
and beta decays), not strong interaction fusion or fission processes.
Indeed, we believe that unique characteristic is exactly
why LENRs are so much “cleaner” and “greener” than competing fission and fusion
technologies.
You have made an important
contribution to the ongoing scientific debate about LENRs and their potential
use in environmentally sustainable generation of clean, low cost, carbon-free
energy. Thanks to you and ISIS for such outstanding work!
Lewis Larsen, President and CEO, Lattice Energy LLC, Chicago, USA
Microwave more than “wireless”
Regarding your article, Mobile Phones & Vanishing Birds
(SiS 34), you may be interested to know that a colleague of ours, the late
Dr. John A. Tanner of the Canadian National Research Council Control Systems
Laboratory, developed in the early 1970s a method of distancing birds from
airports by microwave emissions, as these were painful to their sciatic
nerves. Prior research of this nature seems to have been done by M. Nadasdi
(1960) and B. M. Cameron (1961).
Andrew Michrowski, The Planetary
Association for Clean Energy, Inc, Ottawa, Canada
In Special Consultative status with the United Nations (ECOSOC) and the Human
Rights Council.
Great to see your article (Drowning in a Sea of Microwaves, SiS
34). I have been concerned about this for some time. An interesting point
is terminology. While the term “wireless” came into vogue more than
50 years ago with public broadcasting radio, in more recent times it has been
picked up with glee by the advocates of “wireless
communications” and “wi-fi”. This is not just a band-wagon effect.
It is also deliberate spin. The great thing about the term “wireless” is
that it tells you what the product isn't. It isn’t wired.
But neither is the food you eat or the clothes you wear, or any living creature
on this planet. All of these, too, can lay claim to the term “wireless”.
So, why describe what a product isn’t?
Clearly a wonderful device to avoid describing what it actually is: a microwave
communication device. Keep up the good work.
Peter Renowden, Melbourne, Australia
Hurrah on Mosanto’s GM patents revoked
I was so pleased to see from your editorial (SiS 35) that successful moves have been made
in the USA to invalidate some patents on GM seeds and crops. Ever since the
furore aroused by Dr Pusztai’s experiments [on the harmful effects of feeding
GM potatoes to young rats in 1998], it has been obvious to me that a lot of
the pressure to adopt GM foods was not only commercial but political, in that
it’s cheaper and less provocative to coerce people by controlling their food
supply than by making war on them. How far US administrations will allow this
attack on one of their weapons to go is another matter.
John Parfitt, Bristol, UK
Dream Farm right on
Regarding ISIS report, How to Beat Climate
Change & Be Food and Energy Rich - Dream Farm 2 (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HowtoBeatClimateChange.php)
I have been advising farmers here in New Zealand and Australia for over 30
years on the finer points of sustainable agriculture, and have met with serious
opposition and even more serious successes. The opposition has come from the
vested interests and although they are very vocal, they have never challenged
the philosophy, only attacked me personally. You can view our successes by
going to our web at www.quantumlab.co.nz.
The world needs what we have, and I feel your organization may be the one
to assist in dispersing the philosophy to a wider audience.
My wife Daphne runs our laboratory along with three others and I take care
of the field work. Daphne worked as a lab technician for the grasslands division
of our old D.S.I.R., in Palmerston North in the North Island of our country,
and I studied soil science from 1968 through 1973 under the late Dr. Wm. A.
Albrecht. After he died in 1974, I went on to study agronomy at Brookside in
Ohio. I further studied animal nutrition under the guidance of Dr. Robert Scott
of Minnesota and Dr. Tim Mason of Texas, returning to New Zealand in the late
70s to set up my own laboratory. Please get your readers to visit our website.
Peter J Lester, Soil Scientist and Animal Nutritionist, Managing
Director, Quantum Labs, Victoria, New Zealand
Organic cheats
Thanks for your article Scientists Find
Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World and More (SiS 36). But the
German weekly Der Spiegel just produced an extremely worrying report
on organic food. Since the supermarkets have found organic food is trendy with
rich
people, and a lot of money can be made, one has to be very careful, it seems.
For example, the article says that Rainer Baechi from the Swiss certification
&
inspection organisation IMO has been checking organic cereals, soy, vegetables
and seafood in China for ten years. The difficulty? Roughly translated, it goes
as follows: “According to our understanding of reality nothing is real,” says
Baechi. “The Chinese certify everything. The problem is finding out what is
real.”
I'm eating organic as long as I can get it. But my organic sunflower seeds
bought at the largest Swiss surmarket chain Migros say “Origin China”, without
any indication of the
entity that checks the certification. So I'm going to send it back to Migros
headquarters as “Uncertified Chinese sunflower seeds”, which have become non-organic.
Organic is good, but apparently there’s quite a lot of cheating.
Helmut Lubbers, ecoglobe - ecology discovery foundation. Geneva, Switzerland
Great thermodynamics
I've read your article Thermodynamics of
Organisms and Sustainable Systems (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/ThermodynamicsOfOrganisms.php)
with great interest. I can imagine that your
sustainability approach will work in the production of food. Question is,
can it be applied to industrial activities and using industrially made products?
Let’s say the manufacturing and use of airplanes, computers, lightbulbs, etc.?
How does one define industrial activities in
terms of Sustainable Systems without reducing these activities to pre-industrial
crafts?
Bert Schwitters, International
Nutrition Company, Loosedrecht, The Netherlands
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho Replies
The principles for industrial/manufacturing processes are the same. It
has been applied to the manufacture of beer, for example. There is no reason
why it cannot be applied to the design of cars and airplanes to increase energy
efficiency.
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