WASHINGTON-Wireless Technology Research, L.L.P., the entity created with funding from the wireless telecommunications industry three years ago after a highly publicized lawsuit claimed pocket phones cause brain cancer, is losing the support of some manufacturers and members of the scientific community amid charges that the five-year, $25 million program is being mismanaged and driven as much by public relations as by science.
The potential fallout, according to various manufacturers and researchers, could be disastrous if the public, federal regulators and Congress lose confidence in the program.
As such, some observers dread the prospect of the wireless telecommunications industry being accused of hiding biological health risks from the 36 million wireless phone users throughout the nation as a result of problems with industry-funded research.
WTR had cash flow problems in fiscal year 1996, which ends May 31, and has not begun the bulk of its laboratory research yet. Consequently, WTR is behind on payments to scientists, and research has been delayed.
“I’m as frustrated as much as anyone else, maybe more,” said Dr. Arthur W. Guy, who oversees bioelectromagnetics and dosimetry and works alongside WTR Chairman George L. Carlo and Dr. Ian C. Munro, head of experimental toxicology.
Meanwhile, there are recent indications that WTR is not completely insulated from industry influence despite efforts by Carlo to keep it independent.
Carlo recently canceled two major contracts on dosimetry certification-a key component of research that would establish a system for manufacturers to ensure that mobile telephones meet radio frequency radiation safety exposure limits-after the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association directed WTR to halt research because it duplicated similar work by several manufacturers.
Carlo said he prefers that dosimetry certification continue under WTR, and is going to meet with industry officials and researchers next week to re-examine the matter.
“Somebody has to do it (dosimetry certification) or what’s the purpose of the research,” said C.K. Chou, a scientist who is developing an RF radiation exposure system using rats that simulates human exposure to cellular emissions at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, Calif.
It took WTR and City of Hope a year to negotiate the contract, owing to who would own the exposure system model. Carlo wanted it available to all researchers, and prevailed. Nevertheless, Carlo is accused of weighting down contracts with legal restrictions.
Interestingly, the loudest protests about Carlo’s work and CTIA’s role in health issues are not coming from environmentalists with suspicion about potential health risks from mobile telephones.
Rather, the sharpest criticism comes from manufacturers like Lucent Technologies Inc., Astronet, Fujitsu Cellular, Mitsubishi Corp., Oki telecom, Qualcomm Inc., Hughes Network Systems Inc. and Toshiba Corp. These companies believe their products are safe, and welcome independent research.
Some of the manufacturers stress that first-class research is their best protection and insurance from product liability lawsuits.
A big knock against Carlo is that his program has produced lots of meetings and paper documents in three years, but little in the way of new scientific research. Carlo, an epidemiologist with a law degree who took on the wireless research project without any previous RF background, has relied significantly on Dr. Guy, who’s based in Seattle.
“There is no laboratory research on animals or on cell cultures being done in the three years since the research program was announced,” said one researcher, who asked that his name not be used.
The picture of Carlo painted by disgruntled manufacturers and researchers is one of a jetsetter traveling to exotic resorts around the world to hold meetings and tout his research program. Carlo called that a cheap shot, saying he’s a victim of character assassination by researchers who’ve been turned down or fired because they do not meet WTR’s strict research standards.
Carlo assisted the chlorine industry several years ago in battling public health concerns about the carcinogen dioxin, but had a falling out with the Chlorine Institute a year before taking on the CTIA project.
Carlo, who has assembled many of the nation’s preeminent scientists, staunchly defends the pace and integrity of WTR.
“If this industry is concerned that I’m going to stand up to them,” said Carlo, “they should be concerned. Because I absolutely will. My loyalty is to public health. My loyalty is to doing this program right. I don’t feel any restraint whatsoever by calling a spade a spade, whatever it is. I think Tom Wheeler understands that.”
Wheeler is president of CTIA.
Since the cellular cancer scare three-and-a-half years ago, CTIA has broadened its health and safety mandate to include pacemaker and hearing aid interference and driver safety. As a consequence, CTIA has steadily increased the health and safety assessment on carriers and manufacturers to pay for new programs. That has angered various manufacturers, which refused to pay for extraneous research beyond that agreed upon for cancer studies but later relented after CTIA’s Wheeler threatened them with sanctions.
Indeed, CTIA told manufacturers-which initially withheld their health and safety assessment for 1996 until concerns about the focus and administration of wireless health research were addressed-that they would lose membership exhibitor privileges at the association’s annual conference in Dallas and be branded among cellular carriers-the manufacturers’ customers-as troublemakers.
The confrontation with Wheeler coupled with the lack of laboratory results at WTR have left some manufacturers and researchers angry and disenchanted with the wireless research program.
“The (cancer) research project is really non-existent,” said Ronald Petersen, manager of Radiation Protection and Product Safety for Lucent. “There’s nothing there. The emperor has no clothes.”
Petersen said he originally opposed the program, arguing it was up to the Food and Drug Administration to intervene if it believed there were a public health risk from cellular telephones. But Petersen said he decided to give WTR a chance, and until now held high hopes for its success.
Petersen and others are angry that what began as cancer research has expanded into pocket phone interference with hearing aids, cardiac pacemakers and other medical devices. Some manufacturers said they believe solid cancer research will prove wireless telephones safe, but fear that combining that research with other research documenting electromagnetic interference from digital wireless phones will confuse the public about the cancer risk.
“I question the depth of the CTIA management’s involvement in health and safety programs in light of the original commitment to maintain complete separation of the industry from the research,” said John Madrid, whose McLean, Va., firm helps market Toshiba cellular phones.
“The strong-arm tactics of CTIA top management is tantamount to extortion,” said Madrid.
Wheeler, noting that manufacturers and carriers agreed to a health and safety assessment two years ago, said, “We’ve heard their complaints and concerns and have responded.” Wheeler plans to seek CTIA executive committee and board approval over the next two months to limit manufacturers’ health and safety assessment to cancer research in fiscal 1997.
Moreover, Wheeler said he’s also taken action against carriers that have been delinquent with membership dues.
By and large, other manufacturers besides the eight former hold-outs and carrier members of CTIA have supported additional health and safety research and outreach efforts.
Norman Sandler, a spokesman for Motorola Inc., said he believes WTR will accomplish what it set out to do.
However, another manufacturer, which asked not to be identified, sa
id that when recalcitrant equipment vendors pressed CTIA about rising health and safety membership dues and questioned how research funds were being allocated at a meeting of manufacturers and carriers comprising the so-called Joint Review Committee, Thomas Lukish, then head of health and safety at CTIA, told them, “You’re paying for PR.”
Lukish, now a consultant in New Jersey, denies having said that. He noted that some money, separate from WTR research, is earmarked for driver safety education, educational programs on electromagnetic interference in hospitals, antenna siting and other public relations matters.
Still, even Wheeler does not deny the public relations benefit of having a research program in place.
“The Health-Safety Program, put in place at the time of the `cancer scare,’ has been praised by various government agencies as a model of a responsible industry effort,” Wheeler said in March 8 letter to various manufacturers.
“This industry’s pro-active research program has defused calls for government programs,” he added, “and allowed the industry to reassure consumers that their phones are safe.”
No judgments to date have been rendered against any wireless equipment supplier or service provider in any health-related lawsuits. However, there are a couple cases pending involving claims of health damage from cellular phones. Legal expenses for Carlo, who was a defendant in one case before he was cleared, were paid out of WTR’s fiscal 1996 blind trust.
Carlo said he objected to that in “frank” discussions with Wheeler, and was assured that future legal expenses in pending litigation will not be drawn from cancer research funds.
“At the end of the day, this program is a really good program,” said Carlo. “No one has ever done this before. No one has ever addressed a public health issue like this, in this manner, before.”
