WASHINGTON-Public alarm over potential health risks from mobile telephones that reached fever pitch in the United States several years ago may be about to seize Great Britain, following publication in the London Sunday Times of new evidence that radio frequency radiation from handheld communicators may pose more of a threat to consumers than what the wireless telecommunications industry has led the public to believe to date.
An April 14 Times’ article, which the U.S. wireless industry and its research arm have criticized as inaccurate and misleading, has created a stir in England and may prompt the first health-related lawsuit against a cellular firm in that country.
Martyn Day, a British attorney who specializes in environmental effects of non-ionizing radiation, will decide this week whether to bring suit on behalf of a mobile telephone salesman who developed nerve damage behind his right ear that impaired his speech before being corrected by surgery. Day said Lyall Smith used his cellular telephone extensively, averaging $1,000 in monthly bills to stay in contact with his sales force.
“What worries me is the lack of epidemiology (studies),” said Day.
Day said Smith contacted him after reading the Sunday Times story by reporter Jonathan Leake, headlined, “Danger: mobile phones can `cook’ your brain.”
None of a handful of lawsuits in America against cellular carriers and manufacturers have been successful, in part because precise scientific data on short- and long-term effects of RF radiation exposure is not in abundance.
A new epidemiolgical study-the first-in the United States funded by the wireless industry suggests RF radiation emitted by pocket phones does not pose a danger to subscribers in the short run, but reaches no conclusion about long-term exposure. Norbert Hankin, a physicist at the Environmental Protection Agency, called the study weak.
EPA considered setting federal RF radiation guidelines in the 1980s, but ceased work on the project for budget and policy reasons.
The wireless telecommunications industry insists cellular telephones are safe, explaining it is spending $25 million on research because it is the responsible thing to do.
Leake points to two unpublished studies in the United States and one in England that could potentially link mobile phone emissions with adverse biological effects.
In one that will appear soon in the International Journal of Radiation Biology, a respected British professional publication, Dr. Narendra Singh and Dr. Henry Lai found single- and double-strand DNA breaks in brain cells of rats that received a continuous dose of RF radiation at 2.45 GHz.
“In recent years, the tremendous increase in the use of cellular telephones, which emit the RFR [radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation] at the 800-900 and 1800-2200 MHz ranges, has further raised concerns on the possible health effects of RFR.”
The researchers said “DNA strand breaks could lead to disruption of cell functions, carcinogenesis, and cell death. Cumulative DNA damage in cells in the central nervous system could be a cause of accelerated aging and neurodegenerative disorders.”
Lai, interviewed by phone at the University of Washington, said he applied to Wireless Technology Research, which is financed by wireless carriers and manufacturers, for a grant for research, but didn’t get funding.
Norman Sandler, a spokesman for Motorola Inc., said Singh and Lai’s research is lacking professional peer review. He also disputed Leake’s assertion that the European Commission was set to tighten RF radiation exposure standards.
Mike Volpe, speaking for WTR director George Carlo, said Leake failed to mention research undertaken in the United States and that “the supposed scientific data he mentions in his story is inaccurate and his interpretation of it is inconsistent with good science.”
Another discovery Leake was to report in a follow-up story in yesterday’s Times is two leading wireless telephone manufacturers, Hitachi Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp., applied for patents for devices to shield consumers from RF radiation.
Leake quotes Hitachi’s patent application describing the purpose of the device to “prevent the health of the user from being injured by exposing the head to a strong electric field.”
The health issue has risen to the surface in the United States lately as industry interests fight to keep the Federal Communications Commission from adopting RF radiation guidelines based on EPA recommendations.
The wireless industry backs stricter RF guidelines crafted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and embraced in 1992 by the American National Standards Institute.
Additional research is being bankrolled by the wireless industry to resolve interference to hearing aids, cardiac pacemakers and other medical devices.
