Barrie Trower

Barrie Trower is a pseudoscientist, conspiracy theorist, and crank who believes that microwaves and related technologies are a major threat to public health. He is frequently cited by other conspiracy theorists and cranks, especially the paranoid crowd that believes that electromagnetic radiation is part of various nefarious plots against humanity.

Barrie in an interview
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“”Here they are targeting you probably with a beam and it is on you all day, it can follow you everywhere you go and it can target you when you’re asleep as well. So you’re really getting a concentrated dose. It’s a bit like putting the light on in your house and sitting with the light or have somebody follow you with a search light and beaming the search light on you all the time.
—Barrie Trower spreads fear and paranoia about WiFi[1]

Trower allegedly trained in the British "Government Microwave Warfare Establishment" in the 1960s and worked with the underwater bomb disposal unit.[2] He hasn't given any concrete evidence to support his apparent training and work. He also claims that after this he "went on to teach advanced physics and mathematics at South Dartmoor College", which in practice means he was a high school teacher, as South Dartmoor CollegeFile:Wikipedia's W.svg is a secondary school in Ashburton, Devon, England. Perhaps he wants you to think it's a research university.[3]

Claims

Trower claims that WiFi is the devil uses "the same frequencies and powers as microwave stealth warfare weapons",[4] which doesn't sound so scary if you know the properties of microwaves. In addition, he claims to be some sort of scientific prophet because he thinks that he predicted police officers and civilians becoming ill because of TETRA's (Terrestrial Trunked Radio's) microwaves.[5] According to his revelations, if microwaves were honestly that harmful we would, by now, have many cases of people becoming seriously ill from the dreaded fiend in disguise the sheeple know as Wi-Fi… Remember to buy a packet of tinfoil hats for the entire family, the man in the straitjacket said so!

The TETRA Report
“”The problem with the microwave communications industry is that they do not have to prove it is safe; you have to prove it is not, and that is an entirely different ball game. As a scientist, if I develop a new pill I have to run a 5 or 10 year clinical trial and convince a Board of my peers that it is safe before I have permission to release the pill onto the market. With the telecommunications industry the tables are completely turned around. They do not have to show these instruments are safe; you have to show they are not.
—Barrie Trower summarizes a purported microwave radiation conspiracy engineered by the telecommunications industry[6]

In 2001, Trower presented his theories at the Devon and Cornwall branch of the Police Federation. The subject of his talk was the supposed dangers of the Terrestrial Trunked RadioFile:Wikipedia's W.svg (TETRA) mobile radio communications system deployed for use by police officers in the UK. This resulted in a screed entitled "Confidential Report on TETRA Strictly for the Police Federation of England and Wales," where Trower outlines a massive conspiracy theory asserting that the dangers of microwave radiation on the health of the populace is intentionally supressed by the telecommunciations industry. He backs up this claim using a variety of sources, including anecdotal evidence related to the global weapons industry. To elevate the fear factor, Trower mentions clandestine CIA and USSR projects, and, of course, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Despite claims that the report was released for peer review,[7] there is no evidence that this ever happened.

In 2004, a UK police officer, convinced that the TETRA system was making him ill, died of cancer. This event revitalized protests against the radio system that many claim "cause headaches, sickness, disturbed sleep and skin rashes".[8] Several government and academic sources reported that the radio communications system was unlikely to pose a hazard to health. Despite this, Trower published a report claiming that these reports were "both incorrect and ignorant of peer reviewed published research."[9] Trower cites a number of anecdotal sources, unscientific studies, and uncited academic sources to back up his claims. The report concludes that the government is either ignorant or deliberately malicious with respect to the hazards of microwave radiation.

Green ink
Trower's unintentionally hilarious infographic on the dangers of microwave radiation to the female reproductive system.[10]
“”Barrie Trower lives in a world different to the rest of us. His world is every bit as dangerous as anything Tolkien could have dreamed up and with each passing day inches closer to engulf us. Very occasionally he surfaces to warn us but returns back to his world largely ignored.
—Climb aboard the crazy train.[10]

Trower is completely unknown in academia. He has neither authored any serious academic works nor have any of his "reports" ever been evaluated or cited by any reputable academic entity. Despite this, the pseudoscientific veneer of Trower's claims have elevated him to minor celebrity status in the clogosphere. Dozens of webshites cite Trower as a source, inflating his negligible qualifications and presenting him as an authority on electromagnetic radiation and health.[11]

This behavior is completely expected, and is an excellent example of crank magnetism. Trower's claims are always presented in a sensationalist fashion, mixing dozens of seemingly questionable sources with an obligatory distrust of government and industry.[9] Mainstream media has occasionally been suckered into presenting Trower as a legitimate scientist. For example, in a article about the safety of wireless networks in Canadian schools, the Montreal Gazette failed their fact checking by presenting Trower as a "British scientist and former naval microwave weapons expert" despite the fact that only source for this claim is Trower himself.[12] Similarly, Canada's National Post ran a sensationalist article about the dangers of WiFi using Trower's inflated credentials.[13]

Trower is not above using fraudulent sources to back up his claims. He backs up his contention that cellular telephone radiation causes DNA damage using university studies that were found to be fabricated.[14][15]

gollark: In general, yes.
gollark: Did you know? The ǂ boson is a type of Boson in the Standard Model. It is prohibited from existing by the laws of physics, but by using a complicated type of particle collider one can still create them using floating point errors. A Floating point accelerator was created by a team of Beniɲ scientists and used to successfully prove the existence of the ǂ boson. The decay exponential of the ǂ boson has base 0.. The ǂ boson has a mass of -65535 ðg, a spin of NaN RPS, no electric charge, and a tactile charge of lemon.
gollark: ¿¿¿
gollark: It's not even hugely minimal though. They have ridiculous special cases to patch over the lack of general solutions.
gollark: Lists are xs or ys.

See also
  • Barrie Trower profile page the "Institute for Geopathology SA" webshite

References
  1. The Danger of Microwave Technology. naturalscience.org, April 2015.
  2. The background to the Trower report at tetrawatch.net.
    In the 1960s I trained at the Government Microwave Warfare Establishment. I worked with the Underwater Bomb disposal unit which used microwaves within its unit. In the 1970s one of my tasks over an eleven year period was to de-brief spies involved in microwave warfare. The location and process that I used I cannot go into as it is still considered secret. I have two Degrees, and a Diploma and in my retirement I now teach Advanced Level Physics, some Mathematics and some Human Physiology at South Dartmoor College.
  3. Barrie Trower – The Shocking Truth About 5G and Wi-Fi (FREE) December 11, 2019 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm, 5G Awareness, accessed 18 Feb 2020
  4. Barrie Ontario Wi-Fi Concerns cont.: Ontario Teachers Support Wi-Fi EMF & Health.
  5. So who is our microwave specialist: Barry Thrower? (16 Dec 2005 03:04) Mast-Victims.org: Discussion Forum & Bulletin Board.
  6. Confidential Report on TETRA Strictly for the Police Federation of England and Wales by B Trower. tetrawatch.net
  7. The background to the Trower report at tetrawatch.net.
    Barrie Trower supplied the names of five independent scientists he could recommend for peer review, and accepted any other scientists of the Federation’s choosing to do likewise. So in September 2001 the ‘Trower Report’ went off for peer review. ...[In 2002] The report was not yet released post-peer review. Rather than be accused of sitting on a report that warned of these things, the Report was released by the Police Federation of England and Wales. An officer released the Report onto the Internet, where it was rapidly ‘adopted’ and disseminated by campaign groups.
  8. Nick Britten and Nic Fleming, Police radio system led to officer's fatal cancer, family fears. The Telegraph, 20 July 2004.
  9. TETRA: A Critical Overview into the Death of Officer Neil Dring by B Trower, tetrawatch.net, 2004.
  10. Expert tells doctors of impending tragedy from EMF radiation as health of nations laid waste by technology. stopthecrime.net.
  11. For example, stopthecrime.net, run by noted "Smart Meter" conspiracy theorist Deborah Taveres, EMF conspiracy site "Stay on the Truth" that has a dedicated page on Trower's videos, the World Foundation for Natural Science, a pseudoscience woo site, and countless others.
  12. Glenn Johnson, Wi-Fi may cause generational defects: scientist. Archived from the original at the Montreal Gazette, 25 August 2010.
  13. Colby Cosh, I bet Mr. Trower has a delightful accent. Archived from the original at macleans.ca, 24 August 2010.
  14. Fraud Charges Cast Doubt on Claims of DNA Damage From Cell Phone Fields. Science 29 August 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5893, pp. 1144 - 1145.
    The only two peer-reviewed scientific papers showing that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from cell phones can cause DNA breakage are at the center of a misconduct controversy at the Medical University of Vienna (MUV). Critics had argued that the data looked too good to be real, and in May a university investigation agreed, concluding that data in both studies had been fabricated and that the papers should be retracted.
  15. Barrie Ontario WiFi concerns, part 1 and Barrie Ontario WiFi concerns part 2. emfandhealth.com.
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