Are Cell Phones Linked to Cancer?

by HOWARD GIRSKY Are you running the risk of a brain tumor whenever you press a cellular phone to your ear?
The use of cell phones is a common sight on Queens streets and schoolchildren in the borough are often seen on school grounds and elsewhere with the mobile devices.
According to a leading public health consulting firm hired under a $27 million contract with the telecommunications industry "our research underscores the need for consumers to be able to protect themselves."
The firm, Wireless Technology Research of Washington, D.C., said its research began in 1993. Its chairman, Dr. George L. Carlo, challenged the products’ safety on network television last week.
The safety of the popular cells phones drew concern from its users last week when ABC Television’s "20/20" cited a link between cell phones and brain cancer. There are reportedly more than 70 million cell phones in use in the U.S.
The new research citing the phones as a cancer risk on the "20/20" program was quickly dismissed by Cellular Telecommunication Industry Association (CTIA), an international organization representing the wireless phone industry.
"The wireless industry is committed to consumer safety and has supported scientific research both in the U.S. and around the world, said Tom Wheeler, president and CEO of CTIA, in denying the allegations.
As the controversy deepened last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a consumer update on mobile phones. It said that four new studies contain interesting new information and warrants addressing the scientific questions they raise.
"Such follow-up is especially important because the number of cell phone users is large and rapidly growing, and because cell phone technology is changing," the FDA said.
Although FDA reported it does not believe that cell phones can pose a health risk in humans, the agency said "when tumors did exist in certain locations they were more likely to be on the side of the head where the cellular phone was used."
FDA concluded the result of the new studies is "scientifically interesting, and follow-up research is warranted."
The FDA consumer alert urged people who must conduct extended conversations in their cars every day to switch to a type of mobile phone that places more distance between their bodies and the source of the radio frequency energy (RF).
It also proposed using a mobile phone in which the antenna is located outside the vehicle, or a hand-held phone with a built-in antenna connected to a different antenna mounted on the outside of the car or built into a separate package, or a headset with a remote antenna to a mobile phone carried at the waist.
Any possible connection between cell phones and brain tumor risks is also under investigation by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. The study is aimed at evaluating exposures from a wide variety of sources, including electromagnetic fields.
The NCI estimated that about 17,500 Americans will be diagnosed as having cancer of the brain or central nervous system this year and 12,000 will die of the disease. The incidence of brain cancer in the U.S. has increased about one percent per year since 1973 and the death rate has increased less than one percent per year.
Meanwhile The Queens Courier obtained correspondence between Daniel R. Hesse, president and chief executive officer of AT&T Wireless Services in Redmond, Washington and Dr. Carlo, Chairman of Wireless Technology Research.
Carlo, a wireless industry consultant, wrote Hesse on Oct. 190 that "…it is clear that much information has been kept from you and you appear to be misinformed. I will clear my schedule to meet with you privately, at your earliest convenience. This is a critical time for your industry and I would like to help however I can."
Carlo, who was brought into the industry to quell fears that cell phones expose cell phone users to brain cancer, stated on the program that "You cannot guarantee that cell phones are safe. That’s absolutely true, but that has always been true."
The ABC show also interviewed Richard Branson, a British billionaire who created Virgin Records and Virgin Air business empires.
"You do not put the phone up to your ear, because it could fry your brain," he said.
Branson claimed a close friend, who was a heavy user of cell phones died of brain cancer.
Another guest, Dr. Ross Adey at the University of California Riverside, called one of the most respected scientists in the field, said that while far from conclusive, the body of research raises the possibility of some very serious harm from extensive exposure to cell phones.
"The picture that’s emerging," Adey said, " is that over the lifetime of the individual you may see changes that could be considered health effects or potential health risks include leukemia and brain tumors."
A leading proponent of cell phones, Thomas Wheeler, president of the cell phone industry’s trade group, took issue with the criticism.
"Our industry has gone out and aggressively asked the question, Can we find a problem? And the answer that has come back is that there is nothing that has come up in the research that suggests there is a linkage between the use of of a wireless phone and health effects."