WASHINGTON-In a Motorola Inc.-sponsored study producing mixed signals for the wireless telecommunications industry, Dr. W. Ross Adey found that 800 MHz digital cellular emissions failed to promote brain cancer in rats but did produce a bioeffect.
The bioeffect, which Adey did not test for and therefore played down, suggested the radiofrequency radiation field the rats were exposed to during their normal life span of two years may have actually shielded or slowed tumor development.
The rats were injected with a small amount of a chemical carcinogen to produce a low level of brain cancer before being dosed two hours a day, four days a week for 22 months with RF radiation equivalent to that emitted by Time Division Multiple Access digital cellular phones.
“All findings were consistent in showing no tumor-enhancing effect,” said the Adey research team in a statement issued from the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Loma Linda, Calif., where the study took place.
Adey presented the research results at the Bioelectromagnetics Society’s 18th annual meeting in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, last week.
“The data included suggestions of a possible tumor-inhibitive effect that lacks statistical significance and therefore must be interpreted cautiously,” the statement added.
A companion RF bioeffects study by Adey using analog phones, which are used by most of the 36 million wireless telephone subscribers, is almost finished.
“The results were consistent with the findings of previous research, including some of Dr. Adey’s in vitro (test tube) studies,” said Norman Sandler, a Motorola spokesman.
Sandler, whose Schaumburg, Ill., employer is the largest mobile communications supplier in the world, added that Adey’s research “provides strong additional support for the absence of adverse health effects related to the use of cellular phones.”
Pam Small, a Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association spokeswomen, said “this is a very positive result and is consistent with other findings.”
As such, the wireless phone industry sees the Adey study as a victory. Several lawsuits in recent years have alleged that cellular phones cause brain cancer, but the courts have yet to find manufacturers or carriers liable for medical damages.
There also is legal action regarding whether the cellular industry has tried to cover up possible health problems from pocket phones.
In England, lawyers are contemplating filing a class action lawsuit in connection with a cellular salesman who developed medical problems after several years of heavy phone use.
Studies on RF bioeffects have proven to be inconclusive, contradictory and highly controversial.
Research at the University of Washington found single- and double-strand DNA breaks in brain cells of rats dosed with RF radiation at 2.45 GHz.
Sandler and others do not put much stock in it because the research has not been peer reviewed or replicated. The Adey study also lacks peer review and duplication.
A five-year, $25 million industry-funded study racked with fiscal and administrative problems has not begun animal studies as the fourth year of the program begins. Dr. George Carlo, head of the Wireless Technology Research L.L.C. overseeing the project, said rat studies have had to await the recent completion of an RF exposure system.
The Food and Drug Administration, which has jurisdiction over wireless phone safety yet does not regulate their use, is monitoring RF bioeffects research conducted by industry. The federal government is doing relatively little research.
Meanwhile, other countries are investigating whether pocket phones pose a public health risk. The World Health Organization, based in Geneva, this month launched a five-year program to assess health and environmental effects of electric and RF fields.
