WASHINGTON-A major Australian study has found significant cancer in rodents exposed to digital wireless phone radiation, dramatic findings that offer compelling new evidence of potential health risks from phones and further undercut long-standing cellular industry claims about phone safety.
The research results, which have been known and tightly guarded for two years, were published in Charlottesville, Va.-based Radiation Research last week and reported in Australian newspapers. CNN carried the story in the United States.
The study was funded by dominant Australian wireless-wireline carrier Telstra and led by Dr. Micheal Repacholi, director of the World Health Organization’s electromagnetic fields research program and former head of radio frequency bioeffects studies at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. Telstra, formerly government-owned and operated, is in the process of becoming a private business.
Repacholi, who has voiced skepticism about alleged cellular phone health hazards in the past, is trying to pull together a $30 million RF cancer research program in Europe.
The actual laboratory work for the Telstra study, which found twice the rate of lymphoma in 100 mice exposed to 900 MHz Global System for Mobile communications digital phone transmissions compared with the 100 mice in the control group, was overseen by Repacholi at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
The RF transmissions were digitally pulsed at “far field,” meaning radiation was not directed right up against the subjects’ heads to simulate human pocket phone use as has been done in recent U.S. studies. As such, there was still double the rate of tumors even though phone radiation was several inches away from the mice.
Mice genetically altered to be more vulnerable than normal to cancer were used. Though relatively new and experimental, RF research using “transgenic mice” enables scientists to gauge cumulative bioeffects of RF exposure over the lifetime of animals sooner than with similar experiments using rats.
The Telstra study caught U.S. policymakers and the wireless industry by surprise and off guard.
“It’s another piece of the puzzle. It’s significant. It’s got my attention,” said one Food and Drug Administration official.
“It looks pretty interesting,” said Norbert Hankin, a scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency. “I think Congress should take another look and put money into this (RF research). There’s more reason to have a program than there ever was.”
Hankin noted the RF health issue has taken on a new light in view of the transition of all wireless services from analog to digital technology formats, noting that nearly all prior RF bioeffects research has focused on analog wireless exposure.
“That’s a real surprise,” said Ronald Petersen, a scientist who oversees RF product safety at Lucent Technologies Inc. Petersen said he hopes non-GSM mobile phone manufacturers won’t exploit the study for commercial purposes because doing so would hurt the entire wireless industry.
Telstra and the U.S. cellular industry moved swiftly to downplay the Australian findings, but still found it difficult to dismiss the new and potentially devastating data.
“While the study reports an increased rate of lymphoma among the exposed mice, the authors have advised that these initial results do not constitute a scientific reason for digital mobile phone users to change their phone use,” Telstra said in a prepared statement.
Telstra, noting mice and humans absorb radio signals differently, said more, independent research is needed.
“The (Telstra) study could be considered by the (Australian) federal government as part of its current $4.5 million research and public information program,” said Dr. Hugh Bradlow, director of research at Telstra.
Tim Ayers, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, echoed Telstra’s comments. But he acknowledged, “It is a legitimate study” and “an important piece of data.”
In an April 27 briefing memo faxed to carriers, manufacturers and public relations personnel “in the event you are asked questions about the research,” CTIA-paraphrasing comments by Telstra-funded researcher Dr. Tony Basten-said “the study was experimental and the findings cannot be related to human health or the safety of wireless phones.”
CTIA also said mice were zapped with radiation 1,000 times greater than the average exposure in a typical cell site, a statement true on its face but also misleading given the relevant study measurement was phone RF, not cell site RF.
The trade group reminded members that “no single study can be conclusive and must be replicated to see if the same results occur.”
“Rather than war-game the Repacholi study as they have previous studies that have found serious adverse health hazards from the use of cellular telephones, the wireless communications industry should see this new study as a wake-up call,” said Cathy Bergman, president of the EMR Alliance, a watchdog consumer group.
Dr. Ross Adey, a prominent Motorola Inc.-sponsored RF scientist at the VA Medical Center at Loma Linda, Calif., will unveil a new study at the 2nd World Congress for Electricity and Magnetism in Bologne, Italy, this June that will show no brain tumors in rats exposed to analog cellular phone radiation.
The abstract of Adey’s paper was reprinted in the March/April issue of Microwave News.
The Australian Telstra study comes as Congress investigates FDA oversight of the Wireless Technology Research cancer research program, which has produced no biomedical results in four years despite spending $17 million that has yet to be accounted for.
As of last Wednesday, FDA was a week-and-a-half late in answering questions on WTR and RF research sent to the agency early last month by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), ranking minority member of the House telecommunications subcommittee.
WTR, budgeted at $25 million, is approaching its fifth and final year. The program has been beset with legal, funding and management problems. Just last month, Arthur W. Guy, the only member of the WTR management trio with RF expertise, left the program but will continue on as a consultant.
CTIA President Thomas Wheeler and Dr. George Carlo, an epidemiologist who heads WTR, agreed last week to indemnify scientists against lawsuits. Research has been halted for months over legal and related funding disputes.
