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    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
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OPINION ONLY

2010 Feb 6: Microwave News criticises a recent report (Risk Governance Deficits: An Analysis and Illustration of the Most Common Deficits in Risk Governance) by the Geneva-based International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) on the grounds of conflict of interest.

    The IRGC is a self-described "independent" group run by a group of government, industry and academic leaders. The report has case studies on hot-button issues, including genetically modified food, mad cow disease and EMFs. Most are relatively sensible, it says, but the one on EMF's is not:

One of the four principal authors of the IRGC report is John Graham, who is himself a controversial figure in the risk business. He was the founder of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, whose corporate sponsors read like a roster of the S&P500.

    More surprising is that the chair of the IRGC's Scientific and Technical Council is Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Morgan was a coauthor of an influential EMF report back in 1989 —the first to introduce the concept of precaution for EMF health risks; they called it "prudent avoidance." (One lesser known fact: Morgan was Graham's thesis advisor at CMU.)

    Graham is no stranger to EMFs either. He provided cover for George Carlo's research project for the cell phone industry. Carlo paid Graham's Center for Risk Analysis over $400,000 to help him camouflage the fact that Carlo's enterprise, known as WTR, was a scam, whose primary objective was to avoid doing health research.

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