WASHINGTON-In some respects, the Main Event was a non-event.
Wireless stocks did not go into free fall. Major dailies did not go wild with follow-up stories on ABC’s “20/20” broadcast on mobile-phone health concerns last Wednesday evening. Congress did not call for hearings, although Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) briefly quizzed Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Jane Henney on mobile-phone health research at a hearing the morning after the broadcast.
Federal regulators, for their part, did not order a recall on mobile phones. The short-lived panic that ensued six years ago, following a Florida man’s claim on “Larry King Live” that his wife’s fatal brain tumor was caused by her mobile phone, did not happen, even though this half-hour program was shown during prime time on network TV. The sky did not fall.
America’s love affair with mobile phones apparently is so strong that even an explosive, TV network broadcast about alleged health risks from mobile phones cannot tear the nation’s 80 million subscribers away from their beloved communicators.
Even so, informal surveys and interviews by RCR with carriers and suppliers indicated wireless firms got some calls from concerned subscribers, but not nearly the number they expected. Sales of headsets were up. And so were requests for Motorola Inc.’s StarTac phone (having an antenna that juts away from the head) and for digital upgrades.
While the wireless industry decried the “20/20” program as being unbalanced and sensational, the biggest complaint on ABC’s Web site was the absence of testing hot-selling digital mobile phones. While digital phones sell faster than analog phones these days, 70 percent of all mobile phones in operation still use analog technology, the kind tested by “20/20.”
But while on the surface, the “20/20” mobile phone segment may not have registered on the industry’s Richter Scale, the impact and implications of the national broadcast still could be far-reaching.
CBS’ “60 Minutes” is interested in doing a follow-up investigation. And likely others will too.
The health issue is likely to stay with the wireless industry for the long-haul. The five-year, $27 million cancer research program that just concluded could just be the beginning. And the cellular consumer crusade by Dr. George Carlo, chosen by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association to run that program, has not yet picked up a full head of steam.
Carlo believes the CTIA is downplaying the significance of WTR studies that found a possible link between mobile phones and cancer. Carlo also said he is suspicious of an effort between CTIA and FDA to conduct post-WTR research.
“I am very disturbed by the flagrant misrepresentation of facts and history that have appeared this morning on CTIA’s Web site,” Carlo wrote GTE Corp. Chairman Charles Lee the day after last Wednesday’s “20/20” broadcast.
“It is a transparent attempt at spinning public opinion and misusing the work of reputable international scientists and … regulatory authorities” from around the world.
Carlo urged Lee not to accept CTIA information “without careful scrutiny as it is boxing the industry into a corner from which it will be unable to emerge unscathed.”
CTIA posted a wealth of material on its Web site “to both answer and refute allegations” made during the “20/20” broadcast.
“The consensus of scientific evidence indicates there is not a link between the use of wireless phones and adverse health effects,” said CTIA President Thomas Wheeler, repeating a talking point he said several times to ABC reporter Brian Ross.
When pressed to name a single scientist in that consensus, Wheeler stumbled before saying, “the FDA.”
Ironically, worries by industry before the “20/20” broadcast far outweighed public reaction after the broadcast. Before the “20/20” mobile-phone piece aired, CTIA hired a lawyer to seek a delay of the broadcast until ABC President David Westin and other executives could review the segment for accuracy.
But the letter was more than just a gentlemanly request for a delay: CTIA sought out lawyer W. Andrew Copenhaver, who successfully sued ABC over a 1992 broadcast of an undercover investigation of North Carolina-based supermarket chain Food Lion.
A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., overturned the lawsuit last Wednesday, the same day “20/20” aired its investigation into mobile-phone health concerns.
All told, neither the wireless industry nor the federal government helped to clarify the mobile-phone health issue for the American public. The FDA, the lead U.S. agency on mobile-phone radiation safety, refused to let Dr. Elizabeth Jacobson (director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Heath) or anyone from FDA do an on-camera interview. FDA would only agree to a background briefing for ABC.
On the same day as the “20/20” broadcast, FDA posted a consumer update on mobile phones and a copy of a letter of intent to cooperate on post-WTR research with CTIA.
The FDA-CTIA effort will concentrate on several of the 40 studies conducted by Carlo that show positive results; that is, results that possibly suggest a relationship between mobile mobiles and adverse health effects.
This is a marked change from previous FDA correspondences, including those to Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), when Jacobson and her staff put the highest priority on lifetime animal studies. There is no mention of such studies, which are time-consuming and expensive, in the FDA-CTIA letter of intent.
Dr. Russell Owen, chief of the radiation biology branch in FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said the parameters of post-WTR research are dictated by CTIA’s interest in wanting to fund more research to answer questions arising from WTR studies.
Owen said FDA is taking a global approach to RF research by working with the World Health Organization and others to get a better scientific understanding of the interplay between mobile phone RF and public health. WHO does not conduct actual research. It is more of a clearinghouse on RF health issues.
Jo-Anne Basile, who oversees health issues for CTIA, said lifetime animal studies previously conducted will be repeated by Australia and possibly the European Commission.
Jacobson, according to a knowledgeable source, has asked Jeff Nesbit-a former FDA official who worked closely with Carlo at WTR-to be the liaison between industry and FDA for future research. When contacted last week, Nesbit declined to say whether he would take the job.
Likewise, the Federal Communications Commission could not make Chairman William Kennard available and instead offered up chief engineer Dale Hatfield to “20/20.” But “20/20” declined, saying it wanted the top policy person at the FCC rather than agency’s top technical expert. In the end, the two parties compromised on a written statement from the FCC that was read in part on the air.
In its statement, the FCC said it wanted to closely scrutinize testing of five mobile phones (analog and dual-mode) by a German firm (Institute for Mobile and Satellite Technology) that ABC News hired after several American testing labs turned down requests to test whether the phones met U.S. RF radiation safety standards.
According to ABC tests, several of the phones exceeded FCC limits for specific absorption rate (SAR). The wireless industry said the tests and the interpretations of results were flawed.
The FCC also repeated its call for standard-setting committees to develop specific procedures and methods for testing mobile-phone RF emissions.
“If they do not act promptly to finalize standardized testing methods, the commission will mandate action on its own,” the FCC said. Kennard made a similar statement about a year ago.
