This should concern the world's 300 million cell phone users, 83 million of whom live in the United States. Recent animal experiments and epidemiological studies indicate that the microwave radiation emitted by cell phones may damage brain cell DNA and increase the risk of cancer. However, like the threats to public health posed by sewage sludge, carcinogenic cosmetics and agricultural pesticides, the federal agencies charged with safeguarding public health seem more attuned to the needs of the industries they regulate.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) realizes that questions about the safety of cell phones remain unanswered. A "Consumer Update on Mobile Phones" on the agency's Web page reads: "It is well known that high levels of radio frequency radiation can produce biological damage through heating effects (this is how your microwave is able to cook food). However, it is not known whether ... lower levels of radiofrequency radiation like that produced by cell phones might cause adverse health effects as well." (A note on semantics: The cellular industry and the FDA eschew use of the word "microwave," preferring the ameliorative term "radiofrequency radiation.")

The FDA acknowledges that experiments have shown that microwave radiation could cause cancer in laboratory animals, but the agency has chosen to ignore them. In the past year, however, thanks to a flurry of media reports, the public has begun to take notice.

Like other public health controversies, this one has become a scientific showdown between industry-sponsored and independent researchers, with the federal government, in this case the FDA, straddling the fence--loath to offend either the telecommunications industry or the powerful politicians whose campaigns the industry helps fund. But when it comes to cell phones, there is a confusing twist.

Last year, the potential dangers of cell phones made a splash when George Carlo, who for six years had coordinated $25 million of cell phone research funded by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), went public with some unpublished research suggesting that cell phones were not as safe as previously thought. In one CTIA-funded study, researchers at Integrated Laboratory Systems in North Carolina found that microwave radiation from mobile phones damaged the chromosomes of blood cells called lymphocytes after 24 hours of exposure. And a CTIA epidemiological study found a link between cell phones and neurocytoma, a rare type of brain cancer. (The average length of phone use in this study was less than three years, which is significant since the technology is relatively new and any long-term effects on humans have yet to show up.)

Some of the most troubling, and thorough, research on the effects of microwave radiation has taken place at the University of Washington. Henry Lai, a bioengineering professor there, found that rats exposed to one hour of low-level microwave radiation suffered from both long-term and short-term memory loss. Because rat brains are very different from human brains, it is difficult to extrapolate from one to the other. But, Lai says, the research "suggests that the microwave radiation caused a change inside the brain, and that the same type of change might also affect humans in a different way."

More troubling to Lai was his research finding that exposure to low-level microwave radiation caused the DNA in rat brain cells to break up. Since the DNA of rats and humans is so similar, the radiation emitted by cellular phones is also likely to damage the DNA of human brain cells. Such DNA breakage is serious, Lai says, because "the cell may not be able to repair the breakage correctly and then you are talking about mutation, and mutations can lead to cancer. And in extreme cases, the cell may die from the damage."

However, research funded by the CTIA failed to discover any DNA damage, according to Carlo. "Radiofrequency radiation does not break DNA," he says. "That is a huge finding."

This is strongly disputed by Lai, who in a long letter to Microwave News, which for 20 years has been covering the debate over the health effects of nonionizing radiation, slams the CTIA-funded research procedures. "[The CTIA research] program is a disgrace to the American research establishment," Lai wrote. "It has shown a consistent pattern of chaotic corruption and deception. ... Until we have an independent and reliable research program free from any control from the industry, the global impacts of cellular phone use will be assessed by 'post-market surveillance'-- in other words, by whatever effects may occur among users of these devices."

Lai, who does not use cell phones, told In These Times, "The vindication of the cell phone is still a long way off."

Carlo's critics in the scientific community question his motives. They note that his research agenda has always been skewed toward finding results that will please industry and that he went public with his troubling--and unpublished--data only after his funding from the CTIA ran out, raising the question of whether his recent hue and cry was a ploy to drum up more business. "I have dealt with [the CTIA research program] all the years it was in existence and it was not what I would call a straightforward research program in any way, shape or form," says Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News.

What's needed, Slesin says, is a well-funded independent research effort with special emphasis on studies in which animals are exposed to low levels of cellular phone radiation over their lifetimes.

In 1997, the FDA asked Carlo to conduct such research, but no studies were done and the FDA did not follow up. "The FDA has not been willing to make a case for doing the research," Slesin says. "Basically it has allowed the industry to police itself and to set the agenda, and that has been a mistake because we have gotten nothing done."

That trend continues. The FDA announced last October its intent to collaborate with the CTIA on future research, following up on two very limited areas of concern raised by the group's previous research. But again, the research will be done by the CTIA, and the FDA will have only a nonsupervisory role.

In the wake of last year's negative publicity, the FDA did send a letter to the National Toxicology Program, a government research agency in North Carolina, asking it to conduct microwave experiments on animals over their lifetimes. The petition is currently being considered. The FDA's request was apparently prompted by an Australian experiment, funded by the national telephone company, which discovered that rats exposed to low levels of microwave radiation like that emitted by cell phones had a rate of blood cancer twice as large as that of the control group.

There are other disturbing indications that microwave radiation from cell phones may not be as benign as previously thought. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University discovered that cancer cells proliferate when exposed to microwave radiation like that emitted by cell phones. And research on humans at Bristol University in England discovered that 20 to 30 minutes of exposure to mobile phone radiation adversely affected the functioning of the visual cortex, the area of the brain that processes sight.

The National Cancer Institute is finishing an epidemiological study of brain cancer and cell phone use that should be released within the year. But since cancer can take years to develop and cell phones have not been widely used for very long, the impact of cell phones on human health may not be readily apparent for years to come. Nonetheless, a recent Swedish epidemiological study discovered that cell phone users were 2.5 times more likely to have tumors in the brain lobes next to their "phone ears." (Because of the small size of the sample, the results, while suggestive, are not statistically significant.)

The only laboratory research in the United States presently conducted on the effects of microwave radiation is being carried out by cell-phone manufacturer Motorola. In 1998, the company broke ranks with the CTIA and openly criticized its research program. "We have lost five critical years, and money can't buy those years back," said Q. Balzano, director of Motorola's Electromagnetic Research Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in an interview with Microwave News. Slesin adds that Motorola realizes that if cell phones are proven to be a health hazard, it will need to have good scientific data to protect itself from future lawsuits.

In the meantime, consumers can protect themselves by, ironically enough, turning to the FDA Web site. The FDA emphasizes that "the scientific data do not demonstrate that mobile phones are harmful." On the other hand, there is almost no independent research to show that mobile phones are not harmful, and a load of studies that raise questions. Understanding this, the FDA advises consumers "concerned about avoiding even potential risks" to minimize their exposure to cell phone radiation. For example, you could "consider holding lengthy conversations on conventional phones" and limit cell phone use to short calls. If you use a cell phone a lot in the car, you can get a phone that has the antenna outside the car. Finally, cell phone users can wear a headset with a remote antennae to "a mobile phone carried at the waist." Whether you want microwave radiation penetrating that area is another question.

Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times.

In These Times © 2000

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