Is your cellphone killing you?

A neurologist who's dying of a brain tumor is suing to try to prove that his phone is responsible.

By Tabitha Powledge

Aug 10, 2000 | It may be time to use your beloved cellphone less. Or even -- don't shoot the messenger, please -- to give it up. If Dr. Christopher Newman has his way, the whole world will begin to associate these convenience gadgets with a deadly disease.

Last week, the Maryland neurologist filed a suit, alleging that his hours of remote chatting caused the brain tumor that is killing him. He is accusing the industry of knowing that radio frequency radiation from the phones was dangerous, and of misleading him into believing it was safe. Newman is demanding $800 million from seven cell phone manufacturers and cellular service providers and two industry associations. "The public has been grossly under-informed and misinformed regarding the biological risks associated with wireless phone usage," the complaint says.

A spokesman for one of the trade-association defendants, the Cellular Telecommunication Industry Association (CTIA), declined to comment on Newman's suit. But health questions have nagged at users of the ubiquitous communication devices for years, and there's been talk that lawyers are licking their chops at the thought of doing to the mobile phone industry what was done to the tobacco industry. On Aug. 2, ComputerWorld reported that cellphones have attracted the attention of the class-action bar, notably Peter Angelos. Super-lawyer Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, helped Maryland in its tobacco lawsuit. Angelos' office says there are no present plans for suing anybody, but he's keeping an eye on the cellphone issue. The Newman suit was filed in Baltimore, although not by Angelos' law firm.

And what is the startling new evidence that cellphones cause brain tumors, or anything else nasty? There isn't any, really, just an increasing unease. A Swedish study published in May reported a borderline statistical association between cellphone use and a twofold increased risk for tumors in the brain region nearest the phone. But the study was small. It is still the case, as industry and government agencies have said for years, that "present scientific information does not indicate the need for any special precautions for use of mobile phones."

That's what the World Health Organization said in June. Yet in the same breath the WHO advised, "If individuals are concerned, they might choose to limit their own or their children's exposure by limiting the length of calls, or using 'hands-free' devices to keep mobile phones away from the head and body."

Why so equivocal? Because out of some 200 safety studies to date, there have been a few (like the Swedish one) with mildly troubling findings. Now that so many people are using cellphones, the stakes are higher. An estimated 100 million Americans and 400 million folks elsewhere use them, and the industry forecasts 1.6 billion users worldwide by 2005. "We now have large populations exposed to low levels of radio frequency," notes Gregory Lotz of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Heath. It is a gigantic experiment, by far the largest ever carried out on human subjects. Before long, Lotz points out, pretty much everyone will be exposed to radiation through wireless communication. If there is a risk, even a tiny one, thousands and thousands of people will be affected.

Moreover, there is almost no data on long-term exposure. Exposure is already so pervasive, and has gone on long enough, that the WHO itself has been able to put together a 10-country epidemiological study to look for possible links between the radio frequency fields (RF) generated by mobile phones and head and neck cancers. The study group will comprise thousands of people, many of whom will have been users for years. That's large enough, the agency says, to detect a relationship if there is one. The research, however, will not be finished until 2003.

"All the information we have to date shows no adverse health effects from the use of mobile phones," says the WHO's Michael Repacholi. "However, most studies have examined the results of whole body exposure to RF fields at levels far higher than those normally associated with wireless communications. With the advent of such devices as walkie-talkies and mobile phones, it has become apparent that few studies address the consequences of localized exposures to RF fields to the head."

Next Page: Are hand-free sets safer?

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