To the Editor:
I found the opinion by Tracy Ford (RCR, Oct. 25, 1999) to be oddly uninformed, especially in view of the long-term coverage your publication has given to the wireless phone health issue. While I have certainly had my differences with RCR over the years, I have grudgingly come to respect your reporting. You have gotten this one wrong in some respects, however.
My personal experience with the investigative team from 20/20 tells me that every fact was checked and every assertion rigorously backed up. The barrage of letters that were sent by wireless industry lawyers to try to stop the show, many of which lodged ad hominem attacks against me and other scientists who spoke out, further underscored the need for accuracy in the reporting. We were under a microscope and we felt it. While you may wish to question their choice of sources used on camera, there was plenty of substance that was not displayed.
Your assertion that digital phones emit less RF is probably accurate, but the inference that this translates to less health risk is completely unfounded. The fact that digital phones are replacing analog phones is no reason for reassurance. In fact, there is less known about digital phone effects than analog phone effects. The epidemiological studies we completed considered analog phones for the most part, because that is what was on the market. One of our findings-a 50-percent increase in the risk of acoustic neuroma among those who reported using analog phones for six years or more-leads one to an examination of phones used in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those phones are for the most part out of circulation. This underscores the need for the post-market surveillance that the industry and the Food and Drug Administration have apparently bagged. The genetic damage studies we have completed are suggestive for both analog and digital signals.
Regarding my motives, I have always called it the way I see it. In the past couple of months, two things have become clear:
1. The consumer protection backdrop of post-market tracking and monitoring, the hallmark of the WTR program, has been jettisoned by both the industry and the FDA. Even the proposed CRADA (Cooperative Research and Development Agreement) between the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the FDA, which I vehemently oppose as a conflict of interest, does not even attempt to address the most important questions. Without that safety net, research in hand must be forced into an interpretation paradigm that focuses solely on public health protection. This presents the need for more definitive decisions with limited data, especially in light of a new wireless phone user almost every second in the United States alone.
2. Both the industry and the FDA have put unwarranted focus on the value of specific research follow-up to the work done by the WTR. That work certainly needs to be followed up, but there are more than the two studies that have been targeted by the industry in the WTR surveillance and monitoring data set that raise questions.
What about the brain cancer mortality findings? What of the question of interference between digital phones and implanted defibrillators that followed directly from our work on pacemakers? What do we make of the acoustic neuroma excess? What of the dosimetry and testing flaws? What about the adequacy of the FCC standard in light of new data based on experimental systems developed especially for wireless phones? What about the significance of the genetic damage studies to children whose brains are still growing and developing? What about the significance of new dosimetry data suggesting that children are exposed to much greater levels of RFR from phones? What about teenagers driving with wireless phones in their cars? What about the question of laterality of brain tumors with the side of the head that is exposed to the phone? What about the significance of technology change on biological effects and interpretation of current data? What about the absence of in-field quality control by the FCC? What about the vagueness of the FCC compliance protocol? What about those phones that are out of compliance? These are the questions that have arisen from the WTR surveillance program.
There is certainly more here than meets the eye. Someone has to pick up the ball.
George L. Carlo, Ph.D., M.S., J.D.
Chairman
Health Risk Management Group Inc.
Washington, D.C.
