Physical Insights

An independent scientist’s observations on society, technology, energy, science and the environment. “Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.” – Carl Sagan

A Question, dear readers…

I’m currently interested in trying to find an example of any kind of scholarly paper or article published by Helen Caldicott, which has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is not just the usual “nuclear power bad” stuff we’ve all heard before. For example, any example of an article dealing with research into or treatment of cystic fibrosis, which was her area of professional expertise. Given that Caldicott was “Researcher in Cystic Fibrosis, Boston Clinic; formerly Director of Cystic Fibrosis Research, Adelaide Children’s Hospital, Adelaide. Australia.”, or at least so I’m reading, I’m surprised to find that despite running a few search queries through Elsevier, Medline, Web of Science and so forth, I’ve not been able to find any such example of any published works. I’d like to see a kind of baseline example of what her grasp of critical thinking, science and scholarly research was like, before it was swamped by this fervent dogma and drowned out.

That seems strange. Can anybody else find any such articles, or published works?

December 8, 2008 - Posted by Luke Weston | Uncategorized | | 3 Comments

3 Comments »

  2. That’s just the usual nuclear power fairytale rubbish – including the stunningly ridiculous nonsense claim that a loss-of-coolant accident in a nuclear reactor can cause a nuclear explosion.

    Still, I’m amused by the fact that it’s the Journal of Complementary Medicine – is that the only medical (ahem) journal that would accept it? :)

    Comment by Luke Weston | December 9, 2008 | Reply

  3. I’ve looked around a bit but so far it’s chirp, chirp, chirp on Helen Caldicott and cystic fibrosis.

    All the references I’ve found for “Helen Caldicott cystic fibrosis” on Google that pertain to actual medical practice and research refer to the “Caldicott principles” but that’s another Caldicott, Dame Fiona Caldicott, involved in bioethics and confidentiality of medical data.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Caldicott

    There are also a few other false positives for yet some other but no Helen anywhere.

    May be you should ask directly Helen Caldicoot’s PR agents for a list of her publications on cystic fibrosis proper :)

    Calls to the University of Adelaide Medical School, Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Harvard Medical School may also be in order.

    It slightly reeks and reminds me a bit of Lovins’ scientific credentials. Not really false, not quite true. Note that to be fair to her, if she did any legitimate medical research, it would have been in the 60s and early 70s and it may not be indexed in electronic form.

    Still. Weird.

    Comment by Fifi | December 10, 2008 | Reply


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