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From Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
To: Magda Havas mailto:drmagdahavas@gmail.com
Jan 31, 2012, at 1:31 PM
Good morning
Could you please let me know if you received my previous email? If you are not interested in cooperating just let me know.
Thank you
Joe Schwarcz PhD
Director, McGill Office for Science and Society
801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC
H3A 2K6
514-398-6238
Response from Magda Havas to Joe Schwarcz
From: Magda Havas mailto:drmagdahavas@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:24 PM
To: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
Cc: Lorne Trottier; Martin Weatherall
Subject: Re: ?
Joe,
I have already written to Lorne Trottier (January 20 2012) and told him that he is able to repeat the study on HRV or to do whatever study he wishes in whatever way he wants. You have read a copy of that letter because you mentioned it to me in a previous email (dated January 25, 2012). Note I have provided our recent email correspondences below.
A group is currently repeating our HRV study and they are using their own subjects and not subjects that we provided for them to test. I expect they will have results for publication within the year.
You did not send a letter to me but rather a letter addressed to Martin Weatherall asking him to participate in a study. It was a hard copy of the same letter Lorne appended to his January 20, 2012 email to Jarvis and Garofalo. I do not know if this was a mistake or intentional. I have not received a letter addressed to me from you or Lorne Trottier.
Neither of you are "independent" and "unbiased." Read your own website. You have an agenda and are following it with the intent of trying to discredit anyone who finds harmful effects of electrosmog. You have no credibility within the scientific community and are losing, what limited credibility you had, with your false accusations.
Why is it that neither you nor Lorne are called to provide expert testimony at hearings? Why is it that the "comments" on your website are not submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication? Why is it that neither you nor Lorne have published in peer-reviewed journals on this topic? You are like two little kids slinging mud at those who are trying to make a difference in this world.
You are rude offensive and insulting. Read your own response to me via email dated January 25, 2012 (see below). Why on earth would I want to work with you? You are trying to bully both me and Martin and that is simply not going to work. You also offer funding to entice someone to participate. This is also not going to work. I offered no money to those who volunteered to be tested or those who helped with the testing.
It seems that Lorne Trottier is obsessed with me and my work and this concerns me from a personal perspective. I cannot ask you to cease and desist as the web is a place for sharing ideas and opinions. All I ask is that you get your facts right. Your opinions are your own and fortunately they influence only other skeptics such as yourself and possibly those who have little understanding of the science.
Do you recall the first time you and I spoke. You asked me to appear as a guest on your radio show. You said you wanted to interview me about my research. You did NOT inform me that two other people would be on that show and that they would "gang-up" on me. One of those individuals was Lorne Trottier. I arrived late and heard them speaking disparagingly about my research. Once they stopped criticizing my work they then criticized other scientists who were not there to defend themselves. I was disgusted by their bullying tactics and the fact that you did not give me honest information about the purpose and format of the interview. I did not know at the time that Lorne Trottier was financially supporting your outreach efforts at McGill. How on earth can you call yourself independent?
While I should be flattered that you are so interested in my research, I am not. I am deeply disturbed that someone like you and Lorne Trottier, who are obviously intelligent and knowledgeable (at least in areas other than the health effects of electrosmog) are so obsessed with me and my work and are hell bent on discrediting people that include not only me but Dr. Devra Davis, Dr Sam Milham, those involved in the BioInitiative Report, Dr. Henry Lai, Blake Levitt, among others. My colleagues from around the world contact me and ask "who are these crazy people in Montreal?"
You are both living in a fantasy world of your own making and think that you can bully or buy whatever you want. You are wrong. You are so out of touch with people who are suffering from electrohypersensitivity that you think you can do an experiment in a hospital setting in Montreal! That's like testing someone with peanut allergies on a peanut farm! "Let them eat cake" is what comes to mind! Martin could not drive or survive in Montreal!!!! Here is a bit of advice, consider it a free tip. If you do testing, do it in an electromagnetically clean environment. This is so basic that I'm surprised you hadn't thought of it!
Please do not correspond with me any more. I am sending Lorne a copy because this applies to him as well.
-magda
_____________________________
Dr. Magda Havas, B.Sc. Ph.D.
Environmental & Resource Studies,
Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, K9J 7B8
phone: 705 748-1011 x 7882 fax: 705 748-1569
mhavas@trentu.ca mailto:mhavas@trentu.ca
www.magdahavas.com http://www.magdahavas.com (general)
www.magdahavas.org http://www.magdahavas.org (academic)
Response from Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr. mailto:joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:32 PM
To: Magda Havas
Subject: RE: ?
Thank you for your comments. I will not correspond with you further. It remains to be seen who is living in a fantasy world. I am glad you pointed out our folly about being able to do an experiment in Montreal. That view I think will come in handy.
Good luck with your work.
Joe Schwarcz PhD
Director, McGill Office for Science and Society
801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC
H3A 2K6
514-398-6238
Response from Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 9:29 PM
To: Magda Havas
Cc: tips@global16x9.com; Joe Schwarcz, Dr.; Martin Weatherall; Beth Pieterson; lorne_trottier@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: ?
I know I said I would abide by your request not contact you again but I was a little hasty in my acquiescence because I had not read your letter carefully. I do have to make a few final comments. First, about the issue of "ganging" up on you when I invited you to be a guest on my radio show. I asked you to be on because you are a popular figure in the electrosensitivity controversy and I wanted to hear what you had to say. I am not an expert in the nuances of electromagnetism so I asked Lorne and another electrical engineer to be a part of the discussion. My modus operandi is to let the science speak. Yours spoke very softly and was ripe for criticism. There was no "bullying" of any type, just a discussion of possible methodological flaws in your research. Your interpretation that this was an attempt to discredit your work is pure paranoia. Research either stands up to scrutiny or it does not. Putting the work under the microscope is not an attempt to discredit.
You say that I have an agenda. You are right. My agenda is the promotion of evidence-based science. I'm not "pro" or "con" when it comes to scientific issues; my interest is in ensuring that decisions are made based on proper evidence instead of emotion or hearsay. Of course I do have views on what constitutes proper evidence. You ask how come I have not been asked to testify as an expert on the effects of "electrosmog." Simple. I am not an expert in this area. But I think I am pretty good at evaluating the quality of research and I think I can identify the true experts in this area. You are also correct in saying that neither I nor Lorne have published in this area. That does not mean we are incapable of evaluating the published research. And we are skeptical about some aspects of your work, especially the electrosensitivity claims. Not that we don't believe the claimants. They are suffering, to be sure. The question is from what.
We are interested in looking into this issue and obviously the best experimental subjects would be the ones you have found to suffer from the condition. You insinuate that we want to "entice" subjects by paying them. There's no enticement here; we realize that there would be expenses in travelling to Montreal, for which we are willing to offer compensation. You apparently have no problem accepting such compensation when you are asked to speak on the dangers of electromagnetic radiation. I would have thought that you would have welcomed an opportunity to collect more data, this time using more sophisticated equipment. Isn't that what science is all about?
Your comment about not being able to carry out such experiments in a hospital because it is not an "electromagnetically clean" environment is bizarre. The people claiming to be electrosensitive don't live in an electromagnetically clean environment yet they say they can detect the presence of some extra source of radiation such as a smart meter. Surely then even in an electrically "dirty" environment they should be able to detect the presence of an added large field.
In reference to your remarks about colleagues asking about who the "crazies" in Montreal are, I would suggest you direct them to the widely available information about myself and my two colleagues in the McGill Office for Science and Society. You can point out that collectively we have won well over thirty local, national and international awards for teaching, research and science communication, and have been awarded four honorary doctorates. Interestingly, members of our physics department, as well as those in other highly respected universities, have posed the same question about you as your wordly colleagues have used about us. I guess "craziness" is open to interpretation.
Neither Lorne Trottier nor I are "obsessed" with your work. We are obsessed with promoting good science and with treading a rigorous path from observation to conclusion. Pointing out flaws in your work and questioning the role played in the research by someone who markets filters for "dirty electricity" is not "mud slinging." If you want an example of "mud slinging," look no further than your accusation that Lorne is motivated by some sort of interest to protect the WiFi industry, or your totally unfounded claim that Matrox sells equipment to McGill. Nothing could be further from the truth. The accusations you hurl at one of our country's most notable philanthropists are distasteful, bordering on slander.
You say "all I ask is that you get the facts right." We agree. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. That's why we want to explore this further. It is peculiar indeed that you do not share this goal. You do not have to like us personally in order to take part in experiments that could shed further light on the whole question of electrosensitivity. Why continue to poke around in the darkness when light is available? Or is there some alternate sort of "electrosensitivity" coming to the fore here?
Finally, calling me rude, offensive and insulting, is rude, offensive and insulting. There is nothing in our exchanges that suggests any such thing. I admit that we do not regard your work as first rate. I admit to being bothered by your ignoring in your public appearances the significant amount of published literature that runs contrary to your views. In the true spirit of science I would have thought that you would have been eager to grab an opportunity to prove us wrong. I guess I was wrong. Over and out.
Joe
Addendum from Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 9:17 AM
To: mhavas@trentu.ca
Cc: Lorne Trottier
Subject: Addendum
Magda,
Further to my last note, I have learned that we have a room available that is totally electronically shielded. You are welcome to visit at our expense and approve the set up of an experiment to test any subject you claim suffers from electrosensitivity.
Major TV programs and magazines are interested in documenting this venture.
Joe Schwarcz PhD
Director, McGill Office for Science and Society
801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC
H3A 2K6
514-398-6238
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
To: Magda Havas mailto:drmagdahavas@gmail.com
Jan 31, 2012, at 1:31 PM
Good morning
Could you please let me know if you received my previous email? If you are not interested in cooperating just let me know.
Thank you
Joe Schwarcz PhD
Director, McGill Office for Science and Society
801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC
H3A 2K6
514-398-6238
Response from Magda Havas to Joe Schwarcz
From: Magda Havas mailto:drmagdahavas@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:24 PM
To: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
Cc: Lorne Trottier; Martin Weatherall
Subject: Re: ?
Joe,
I have already written to Lorne Trottier (January 20 2012) and told him that he is able to repeat the study on HRV or to do whatever study he wishes in whatever way he wants. You have read a copy of that letter because you mentioned it to me in a previous email (dated January 25, 2012). Note I have provided our recent email correspondences below.
A group is currently repeating our HRV study and they are using their own subjects and not subjects that we provided for them to test. I expect they will have results for publication within the year.
You did not send a letter to me but rather a letter addressed to Martin Weatherall asking him to participate in a study. It was a hard copy of the same letter Lorne appended to his January 20, 2012 email to Jarvis and Garofalo. I do not know if this was a mistake or intentional. I have not received a letter addressed to me from you or Lorne Trottier.
Neither of you are "independent" and "unbiased." Read your own website. You have an agenda and are following it with the intent of trying to discredit anyone who finds harmful effects of electrosmog. You have no credibility within the scientific community and are losing, what limited credibility you had, with your false accusations.
Why is it that neither you nor Lorne are called to provide expert testimony at hearings? Why is it that the "comments" on your website are not submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication? Why is it that neither you nor Lorne have published in peer-reviewed journals on this topic? You are like two little kids slinging mud at those who are trying to make a difference in this world.
You are rude offensive and insulting. Read your own response to me via email dated January 25, 2012 (see below). Why on earth would I want to work with you? You are trying to bully both me and Martin and that is simply not going to work. You also offer funding to entice someone to participate. This is also not going to work. I offered no money to those who volunteered to be tested or those who helped with the testing.
It seems that Lorne Trottier is obsessed with me and my work and this concerns me from a personal perspective. I cannot ask you to cease and desist as the web is a place for sharing ideas and opinions. All I ask is that you get your facts right. Your opinions are your own and fortunately they influence only other skeptics such as yourself and possibly those who have little understanding of the science.
Do you recall the first time you and I spoke. You asked me to appear as a guest on your radio show. You said you wanted to interview me about my research. You did NOT inform me that two other people would be on that show and that they would "gang-up" on me. One of those individuals was Lorne Trottier. I arrived late and heard them speaking disparagingly about my research. Once they stopped criticizing my work they then criticized other scientists who were not there to defend themselves. I was disgusted by their bullying tactics and the fact that you did not give me honest information about the purpose and format of the interview. I did not know at the time that Lorne Trottier was financially supporting your outreach efforts at McGill. How on earth can you call yourself independent?
While I should be flattered that you are so interested in my research, I am not. I am deeply disturbed that someone like you and Lorne Trottier, who are obviously intelligent and knowledgeable (at least in areas other than the health effects of electrosmog) are so obsessed with me and my work and are hell bent on discrediting people that include not only me but Dr. Devra Davis, Dr Sam Milham, those involved in the BioInitiative Report, Dr. Henry Lai, Blake Levitt, among others. My colleagues from around the world contact me and ask "who are these crazy people in Montreal?"
You are both living in a fantasy world of your own making and think that you can bully or buy whatever you want. You are wrong. You are so out of touch with people who are suffering from electrohypersensitivity that you think you can do an experiment in a hospital setting in Montreal! That's like testing someone with peanut allergies on a peanut farm! "Let them eat cake" is what comes to mind! Martin could not drive or survive in Montreal!!!! Here is a bit of advice, consider it a free tip. If you do testing, do it in an electromagnetically clean environment. This is so basic that I'm surprised you hadn't thought of it!
Please do not correspond with me any more. I am sending Lorne a copy because this applies to him as well.
-magda
_____________________________
Dr. Magda Havas, B.Sc. Ph.D.
Environmental & Resource Studies,
Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, K9J 7B8
phone: 705 748-1011 x 7882 fax: 705 748-1569
mhavas@trentu.ca mailto:mhavas@trentu.ca
www.magdahavas.com http://www.magdahavas.com (general)
www.magdahavas.org http://www.magdahavas.org (academic)
Response from Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr. mailto:joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:32 PM
To: Magda Havas
Subject: RE: ?
Thank you for your comments. I will not correspond with you further. It remains to be seen who is living in a fantasy world. I am glad you pointed out our folly about being able to do an experiment in Montreal. That view I think will come in handy.
Good luck with your work.
Joe Schwarcz PhD
Director, McGill Office for Science and Society
801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC
H3A 2K6
514-398-6238
Response from Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 9:29 PM
To: Magda Havas
Cc: tips@global16x9.com; Joe Schwarcz, Dr.; Martin Weatherall; Beth Pieterson; lorne_trottier@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: ?
I know I said I would abide by your request not contact you again but I was a little hasty in my acquiescence because I had not read your letter carefully. I do have to make a few final comments. First, about the issue of "ganging" up on you when I invited you to be a guest on my radio show. I asked you to be on because you are a popular figure in the electrosensitivity controversy and I wanted to hear what you had to say. I am not an expert in the nuances of electromagnetism so I asked Lorne and another electrical engineer to be a part of the discussion. My modus operandi is to let the science speak. Yours spoke very softly and was ripe for criticism. There was no "bullying" of any type, just a discussion of possible methodological flaws in your research. Your interpretation that this was an attempt to discredit your work is pure paranoia. Research either stands up to scrutiny or it does not. Putting the work under the microscope is not an attempt to discredit.
You say that I have an agenda. You are right. My agenda is the promotion of evidence-based science. I'm not "pro" or "con" when it comes to scientific issues; my interest is in ensuring that decisions are made based on proper evidence instead of emotion or hearsay. Of course I do have views on what constitutes proper evidence. You ask how come I have not been asked to testify as an expert on the effects of "electrosmog." Simple. I am not an expert in this area. But I think I am pretty good at evaluating the quality of research and I think I can identify the true experts in this area. You are also correct in saying that neither I nor Lorne have published in this area. That does not mean we are incapable of evaluating the published research. And we are skeptical about some aspects of your work, especially the electrosensitivity claims. Not that we don't believe the claimants. They are suffering, to be sure. The question is from what.
We are interested in looking into this issue and obviously the best experimental subjects would be the ones you have found to suffer from the condition. You insinuate that we want to "entice" subjects by paying them. There's no enticement here; we realize that there would be expenses in travelling to Montreal, for which we are willing to offer compensation. You apparently have no problem accepting such compensation when you are asked to speak on the dangers of electromagnetic radiation. I would have thought that you would have welcomed an opportunity to collect more data, this time using more sophisticated equipment. Isn't that what science is all about?
Your comment about not being able to carry out such experiments in a hospital because it is not an "electromagnetically clean" environment is bizarre. The people claiming to be electrosensitive don't live in an electromagnetically clean environment yet they say they can detect the presence of some extra source of radiation such as a smart meter. Surely then even in an electrically "dirty" environment they should be able to detect the presence of an added large field.
In reference to your remarks about colleagues asking about who the "crazies" in Montreal are, I would suggest you direct them to the widely available information about myself and my two colleagues in the McGill Office for Science and Society. You can point out that collectively we have won well over thirty local, national and international awards for teaching, research and science communication, and have been awarded four honorary doctorates. Interestingly, members of our physics department, as well as those in other highly respected universities, have posed the same question about you as your wordly colleagues have used about us. I guess "craziness" is open to interpretation.
Neither Lorne Trottier nor I are "obsessed" with your work. We are obsessed with promoting good science and with treading a rigorous path from observation to conclusion. Pointing out flaws in your work and questioning the role played in the research by someone who markets filters for "dirty electricity" is not "mud slinging." If you want an example of "mud slinging," look no further than your accusation that Lorne is motivated by some sort of interest to protect the WiFi industry, or your totally unfounded claim that Matrox sells equipment to McGill. Nothing could be further from the truth. The accusations you hurl at one of our country's most notable philanthropists are distasteful, bordering on slander.
You say "all I ask is that you get the facts right." We agree. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. That's why we want to explore this further. It is peculiar indeed that you do not share this goal. You do not have to like us personally in order to take part in experiments that could shed further light on the whole question of electrosensitivity. Why continue to poke around in the darkness when light is available? Or is there some alternate sort of "electrosensitivity" coming to the fore here?
Finally, calling me rude, offensive and insulting, is rude, offensive and insulting. There is nothing in our exchanges that suggests any such thing. I admit that we do not regard your work as first rate. I admit to being bothered by your ignoring in your public appearances the significant amount of published literature that runs contrary to your views. In the true spirit of science I would have thought that you would have been eager to grab an opportunity to prove us wrong. I guess I was wrong. Over and out.
Joe
Addendum from Joe Schwarcz to Magda Havas
From: Joe Schwarcz, Dr.
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 9:17 AM
To: mhavas@trentu.ca
Cc: Lorne Trottier
Subject: Addendum
Magda,
Further to my last note, I have learned that we have a room available that is totally electronically shielded. You are welcome to visit at our expense and approve the set up of an experiment to test any subject you claim suffers from electrosensitivity.
Major TV programs and magazines are interested in documenting this venture.
Joe Schwarcz PhD
Director, McGill Office for Science and Society
801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC
H3A 2K6
514-398-6238
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All trademarks are the property of their respective owners Copyright 2009 EMF & Health