So after I attacked Vyvyan Howard, he has responded.
He has written a letter in the Guardian.
Adam Wishart's attack on us (Response, March 30) over environmental influences in cancer is political rather than scientific, in that he does not address any specific scientific issue we raised. Wishart is a graduate in politics and philosophy, so maybe it is not surprising that he doesn't wish to engage on the latest science concerning cell signalling disruption by xenochemicals.
The part of the letter that I find most interesting is
We wrote our paper as a scientific article. It underwent peer review and was published in a respected academic journal. It is doubtful that Mr Wishart's book will undergo such rigorous scrutiny.
Its interesting, parts of my book have been reviewed by more than a dozen senior scientists. Karol Sikora one of the most senior cancer scientists in the UK, and an advisor to the WHO, read it and said that it was accurate.
And yet Howard's article was written in the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Health. Its a journal that does not even win a place in Pubmed. According to this website it seems that the journal hasn't published for a year. Howard's article was published online - and not as part of the normal publishing process.
Moreover, the journal is doubtless respected but within a quite small group of scientists. The editorial board includes many members of the alternative health community. And its most senior editor is Damien Downing who runs a company promoting nutritional responses to health.
I'm not saying that my book should be given more credence. I'm only saying that Howard is making a political as well as a scientific point. He should at least acknoweldge that.
