WASHINGTON-Mobile-phone firms are again confronting a health issue that industry lawyers have successfully beaten back in court to date.
The controversy over whether radiation-emitting wireless handsets and base stations pose health risks to consumers has been relatively quiet during the past two years since a federal court in Baltimore dismissed an $800 million brain-cancer lawsuit against Motorola Inc. and others.
The lawsuit, brought by Maryland neurologist Christopher Newman, was the biggest of its kind ever to hit the cellular industry in the past 20 years. After U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake ruled against Newman in October 2002 and shot down a handful of class-action headset suits several months later, plaintiffs lawyers suddenly lost their appetite for health litigation.
Industry, now able to point to legal precedent as well as research and government pronouncements that countered hyperbolic cancer fears, regained control of the health issue. Legal exposure from health concerns was no longer obvious or acute.
But while dormant, the health issue is not dead. Indeed, it is attempting a comeback.
At its annual conference in Boston, the International Association of Fire Fighters called for a moratorium on new cell towers on fire stations until possible health effects can be examined.
The IAFF, the nation’s top firefighters union and an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, approved a resolution to study whether cell towers located on or near fire stations in the United States and Canada are making firefighters sick. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, whose campaign draws financial support from some wireless lobbyists and lawyers, addressed the IAFF convention.
Firefighters plan to seek nearly $1 million for the study, said Janet Newton, president of the EMR Policy Institute. The group is working with other firefighter advocates on the cell-tower issue. Cash-strapped cities and townships are paid by mobile-phone carriers to erect towers near fire stations, which tend to reside in densely populated areas.
Lt. Ron Cronin of the Brookline, Mass., Fire Department and Acting Lt. Joe Foster of the Vancouver Fire Department (also vice president of Vancouver, B.C. Local No. 18) spearheaded the passage of the cell-tower measure at the IAFF convention.
“Some firefighters with cell towers currently located on their stations are experiencing symptoms that put our first responders at risk,” said Cronin. “It is important to be sure we understand what effects these towers may have on the firefighters living in these stations. If the jakes in the fire house are suffering from headaches, can’t respond quickly and their ability to make decisions is clouded by a sort of brain fog, then entire communities they are protecting will clearly be at risk.”
The Personal Communications Industry Association, which represents tower companies, did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the IAFF cell-tower resolution, the mobile-phone industry has other fires to put out.
In late September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit plans to hear oral argument in a new challenge to Federal Communications Commission guidelines governing human exposure to mobile phones and other radiation-emitting transmitters. In 2000, a federal appeals court in New York affirmed a lower court decision denying a challenge to the agency’s radio-frequency radiation standard.
Plaintiffs this time around are pressing a different legal theory that in part accuses the FCC of skirting its responsibilities under the National Environment Policy Act of 1969. In short, the plaintiffs-the EMR Network-argue the FCC’s RF rule does not adequately protect the public.
The mobile-phone industry and consumer advocates point to different studies to back their arguments. Government health officials in the United States and overseas say the weight of scientific evidence does not indicate cell phones pose a health threat to subscribers. But they quickly add the safety of phones cannot be guaranteed and therefore support more research.
On Oct. 1, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., is set to hear oral argument on five class-action headset lawsuits thrown out by Blake on jurisdictional grounds. The lawsuits seek to force wireless carriers to supply customers with ear buds or headsets to reduce exposure to RF radiation
While the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Blake’s finding that Newman failed to offer compelling scientific evidence to warrant a jury trial, the dynamics are different in the headset case because of the conservative appeals court’s fondness for states’ rights. The headset cases originally were filed in state court before being consolidated in Baltimore federal court and assigned to Blake.
Last month, Blake-who had consistently sided with industry’s assertion that federal law pre-empted health suits in state court-returned six brain-cancer lawsuits in her court back to the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuits were filed in D.C. Superior Court in 2001.
