WASHINGTON-The wireless industry last week was rocked by two confounding controversies involving a California bill to promote hands-free devices as a precautionary measure against mobile phone radiation and a British consumer magazine’s claim that such gadgets cause a three-fold increase in electromagnetic emissions to subscribers’ heads.
While industry has weathered previous storms over claims that mobile phones can cause cancer and other diseases, last week’s developments here and overseas underscore just how big a public relations problem carriers and manufacturers face in addressing health issues.
A spokesman for Britain’s Federation of the Electronics Industry released the following statement: “Tests made by FEI members and also at an independent laboratory have, without exception, shown that the absorption levels produced when using a headset are significantly less that those produced without a headset.”
But researchers for the consumer magazine Which?, after testing two hands-free headsets, found wired ear pieces create three times as much radio-frequency radiation as the phone itself and that phone shields did little to block mobile phone emissions.
In Sacramento, a hearing was held Wednesday on a bill by state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) to post health warnings at wireless retailers and steer consumers toward hands-free headsets.
It is unclear whether Hayden had enough support to move the bill out of committee. Industry reportedly is pushing a compromise that would require retailers to supply pamphlets on mobile phone health and safety at the point of sale and in boxes containing new phones. Another hearing is scheduled in June.
“The industry is obviously not openly evaluating the use of radiation protection devices because that would be tantamount to admitting there’s a risk,” said Libby Kelley of the California-based Council on Wireless Technology Impacts.
The wireless industry, according to Kelley, had a big presence at the hearing and appears to be using its considerable clout to alter the debate.
“The bill in California fails to recognize the breadth and extent of current research and the opinions of scientific and policy experts in the field,” said Jo-Anne Basile, vice president for external and industry relations for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
While much RF research has failed to link mobile phones to brain cancer, some recent studies found DNA and genetic damage from mobile phone radiation.
The Food and Drug Administration is working with CTIA to repeat experiments by Dr. George Carlo, whose industry-funded Wireless Technology Research L.L.C. discovered evidence that mobile phones may cause health problems.
In the next week or so, Carlo will unveil a major research project that will begin by soliciting-via local and national media-input from citizens around the country who suspect their health problems are mobile phone related.
Carlo has teamed up with Baltimore trial lawyer Peter Angelos, who may later use scientific findings as a foundation for a class-action lawsuit against the wireless industry.
