WASHINGTON-Key lawsuits are set to go forward next month involving claims of fraudulent auditing and privacy violations against Wireless Technology Research L.L.C. and an allegation that a prototype mobile phone antenna caused brain cancer to a Motorola Inc. engineer in the mid-1980s.
On Oct. 14, a trial is set to begin in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia Circuit in which it is alleged that Ronald Cavill, appointed head of the WTR audit committee by WTR head George Carlo, approved fraudulent invoices as part of a scheme to siphon money from sister company Health & Environmental Sciences Ltd.
The accusations were leveled by Patricia Carlo, wife and business partner of George Carlo. The Carlos are in the midst of a divorce, while HES is in a disputed bankruptcy.
Cavill has declined repeated requests for comment. George Carlo has denied any wrongdoing, saying the allegations are an attempt by his wife to leverage a favorable divorce settlement.
WTR, which contracted services from HES, ended a five-year, $27 million mobile phone-cancer research program this summer in controversy over the scientific interpretation of studies that were limited in number and scope.
Carlo and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, which hired the WTR chief in 1993 and whose members funded the cancer project, refuse to release audit reports.
CTIA insists WTR audit reports to date have come back clean. However, CTIA concedes it does not know how Carlo spent the $27 million. The association said it will conduct a programmatic audit to find out.
Differences over the interpretation of short-term WTR studies combined with the absence of long-term animal studies and other data in Carlo’s work have helped keep the mobile-phone cancer controversy alive.
Lingering ambiguity about the health issue has been an albatross around the industry’s neck, played out at zoning board meetings across the country as carriers try to secure local antenna-siting approvals for new systems.
On Oct. 6, a hearing is scheduled in the Cook County, Ill., circuit court on whether a WTR epidemiology study broke privacy laws. The plaintiffs in Jerald Busse et al vs. Motorola et al filed an amended complaint in July after the judge in the case ruled Busse and other Illinois individuals could not bring the class-action lawsuit under Illinois law.
In addition to Motorola, defendants in the case include WTR, CTIA, Ameritech Corp. and Epidemiology Resources Inc. of Massachusetts.
The same court (different judge) also is expected to hear a motion for summary judgment in the case of Robert Kane on Oct. 27. Kane contends his malignant tumor was caused from testing a prototype wireless antenna as a Motorola engineer more than a decade ago.
Motorola argues numerous studies it has conducted or sponsored has not found a link between mobile phones and cancer.
Meanwhile, there is no time-frame on when a federal appeals court in New York will rule on consolidated appeals of the radio-frequency radiation standard adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1996.
