WASHINGTON-The Baltimore law firm that earlier this month filed a mobile-phone cancer lawsuit against several wireless firms and two industry trade associations is expected to file additional lawsuits as early as this week, according to sources. The lawsuits could be filed in Georgia and California against more wireless vendors and carriers.
On Aug. 4, attorney Joanne L. Suder filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City in Maryland against Verizon Communications, Motorola Inc., SBC Communications Inc., the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The lawsuit, which is seeking $800 million in damages, alleges that cellular phone use by Christopher Newman, a 41-year-old neurologist in Maryland, caused his brain cancer. The lawsuit said Newman was diagnosed with brain cancer in March 1998, and that he used mobile phones from 1992 through March 1998.
Since the early 1990s some studies conducted in the United States and overseas have suggested possible health risks from mobile phones.
CTIA, one of the targets of the Newman suit, and the Food and Drug Administration are working together on a limited number of mobile-phone experiments.
CTIA, which is paying for research grants and for scientists’ travel expenses, will make the final decisions on which researchers conduct studies and how much money is spent on particular studies.
The Newman lawsuit claims CTIA members “have negligently and wrongfully continued to maintain that [mobile phones] were safe even though the studies proved otherwise.”
