Fwd: Cell phone nightmare

["bill london" <bill_london@hotmail.com>]

Is anyone interested in the issue of wireless phone safety?  The following 
report summarizes the questions involved....BL



>Robert Weissman
>Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob@essential.org
>
>CELL PHONE NIGHTMARE
>By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
>Ready for a real scary Halloween story?
>
>Remember the Larry King Live show in 1993 on cell phones? David Reynard
>was the guest. He had filed a lawsuit against NEC, a cell phone operator,
>and other companies, alleging that his late wife's brain tumor was caused
>in part by her use of a cell phone.
>
>The Reynard's lawsuit was dismissed in 1995, but Reynard's appearance on
>the show created nationwide concern. At the time, there were 15 million
>Americans using cell phones.
>
>The day after the Larry King Live show, the Cellular Telecommunications
>Industry Association (CTIA) went on the offensive. Industry executives
>said that there were thousands of studies that proved that wireless phones
>were safe. In fact, there were no such studies about cell phone safety.
>
>But CTIA understood the basic reality of the situation, and so it decided
>to spend $27 million over the next six years on health studies.
>
>They hired George Carlo, figuring he would be a perfect fit. Carlo is a
>public health scientist, who had a good track record as an industry
>researcher. Most of his clients over the years have been industry clients,
>and few have been disappointed with his work.
>
>In 1994, Carlo began conducting studies to determine whether cell phones
>pose a health risk to consumers. Four times a year, Carlo would trudge
>over from his Dupont Circle office in Washington, D.C. to the offices of
>CTIA to debrief the CEOs of the major telephone and electronics firms that
>make up the $40 billion a year mobile phone industry. And things went
>well, until 1995.
>
>In 1995, Carlo found that digital phones were interfering with cardiac
>pacemakers.
>
>"We then conducted about $2.5 million worth of research to quantify that
>problem, and as a result, I had somewhat of a falling out with the
>industry," Carlo told us this week. "They didn't like that finding." The
>industry cut off Carlo's funding.
>
>But through a process of negotiation, Carlo got back in. The industry
>would again fund his studies, but only if he agreed not to research the
>questions of defibrillators and digital phones, and of cell phones and
>automobile safety, and he could no longer work on a very extensive program
>to standardize the methodology for testing whether or not cell phones met
>industry-defined standards.
>
>Carlo said that it took him two months to decide that he needed to
>continue the work, even under CTIA's conditions, and so he did.
>
>What he found may prove to be the cell phone industry's worst nightmare.
>
>He found that the risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor of the auditory
>nerve that is well in range of the radiation coming from a phone's
>antennae, was 50 percent higher in people who reported using cell
>phones for six years or more. Moreover, that relationship between the
>amount of cell phone use and this tumor appeared to follow a dose-response
>curve.
>
>He found that the risk of rare neuro epithelial tumors on the outside of
>the brain was more than doubled, a statistically significant increase, in
>cell phone users as compared to people who did not use cell phones.
>
>He found that there appeared to be some correlation between brain tumors
>occurring on the right side of the head and use of the phone on the right
>side of the head.
>
>And, most troubling, he found that laboratory studies looking at the
>ability of radiation from a phone's antenna to cause functional genetic
>damage were definitely positive, and were following a dose-response curve.
>
>Carlo said that he has repeatedly recommended that the industry take a
>pro-active, public health approach on the issue, and inform consumers of
>his findings. He says that he uses a cell phone, but only with a headset.
>
>"Alarmingly, indications are that some segments of the industry have
>ignored the scientific findings suggesting potential health effects, have
>repeatedly and falsely claimed that wireless phones are safe for all
>consumers, including children, and have created an illusion of responsible
>follow up by calling for and supporting more research," Carlo wrote in a
>letter to top industry CEOs this month. "The most important measures of
>consumer protection are missing: complete and honest factual information
>to allow informed judgment by consumers about assumption of risk, the
>direct tracking and monitoring of what happens to consumers who use
>wireless phones, and the monitoring of changes in the technology that
>could impact health."
>
>Carlo is also troubled by a recent agreement between Elizabeth Jacobson,
>the person in charge of cell phone regulation at the Food and Drug
>Administration, and Thomas Wheeler, executive director of the CTIA. Under
>the agreement, CTIA will fund the FDA to do additional safety studies.
>
>Carlo says that in 1994, Jacobson refused such a cooperative research
>agreement, because she didn't think she could both collaborate with the
>industry and regulate it. (Jacobson, through a spokesperson, denies taking
>this position.)
>
>"This arrangement is wrong, plain and simple," Carlo told us. "The FDA's
>behavior is appalling to me. The FDA seems to be more than willing to jump
>in bed with the industry. It is a blatantly arrogant attempt to join in a
>relationship that is a conflict of interest on its face. The reason it has
>not been criticized is that people don't know about it. Consumers are
>being left out to dry."
>
>The FDA's Russell Owen says that the FDA has not regulated cell phones
>because "we don't have sufficient evidence to determine that there might
>be adverse health effects from cell phones."
>
>Sorry Mr. Owen, but in this instance, we agree with the industry's guy.
>(That's a scary thought.)
>
>
>Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
>Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
>Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
>Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
>Courage Press, 1999; http://www.corporatepredators.org)
>
>(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
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