WASHINGTON-As he winds down the cellular industry-funded cancer research project with little to show for the $28 million that will have been spent by mid-1999 when he leaves, Wireless Research Technology L.L.C.’s Dr. George Carlo is quietly ramping up a new industry-backed health program on possible silicone breast implant health risks that is based on the troubled WTR model.
The “Breast Implant Public Health Project L.L.C.” is one of several endeavors Carlo and his 30-person crew oversee at Health & Environmental Sciences Group Ltd. here.
Just as Carlo teamed with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association in early 1993 when fear of pocket phone-related brain cancer was at fever pitch and in the early 1980s, with the Chlorine Institute on the dioxin debate, the embattled WTR chief now has joined forces with Dow Corning Corp.-the leading breast implant maker-to delve into one of the hottest women’s health issues today. Dow Corning has given Carlo $1.3 million to date.
Whether science ultimately declares cell phones, silicone implants and dioxin to be major health problems is another question. But where there is health controversy, Carlo seems to be near.
“All those industries came to me. I never solicited any industry,” for business, said Carlo.
Dr. Susan Blumenthal, assistant U.S. surgeon general and soon-to-be President Clinton’s top adviser on women’s health issues, said the federal government does not have a position on whether silicone breast implants pose a risk to women and agrees more research is needed.
That Carlo has been associated with one controversial health issue another in the past two decades-and is ready to embark on another after failing to deliver on the 1994 wireless research agenda-raises questions about the level of his comittment to radio-frequency radiation research.
That federal policy makers, with until recently the notable exception of Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), have sat on the sidelines for four years as the cellular phone cancer research program disintegrated, raises questions about their interest in a health issue that might not even be a health problem but for the lack of independent American research that keeps the debate alive.
Indeed, Reuters last week reported that scientists from 10 countries in Vienna said they have no evidence that mobile phone use can cause cancer. At the same time, they called for prompt research on possible health risks from radio frequency and electromagnetic fields produced by pocket phones and power lines.
A 1994 General Accounting Office investigation found there is not sufficient meaningful research to determine whether cell phones pose a public health risk. Since then, Motorola Inc. has sponsored research efforts, finding no link between cell phone use and cancer.
Blumenthal, who is Markey’s wife, said she wasn’t aware the same Carlo-headed organization struggling with cellular phone cancer research also is embarking on a project addressing possible health risks from silicone breast implants. Carlo said he is minimally involved in the breast implant project.
How can one man, Carlo, and his 30-person crew at Health & Environmental Services juggle so many complex and seemingly scientific time-consuming public health issues at one time and deliver solid science on them all?
Time is running out on Carlo at WTR and it appears he has lost the confidence of federal regulators, the scientific community, the wireless industry, and now-in perhaps the most devastating blow of all-the revered Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and Peer Review Board on Cellular Telephones that has served as WTR’s advisor and guardian angel.
In a July 15 letter to Carlo from Harvard Center Director John Graham and Project Director Susan Putnam, which incorporated views of the cellular peer review board, WTR was all but disowned by the Harvard group.
Graham, declining to comment on WTR, made the letter available to RCR.
While noting early accomplishments and acknowledging disruptions caused by legal and funding problems, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis slammed Carlo for appearing to cave to political and industry pressure; for creating “expectations in the scientific, business and regulatory communities that have not been matched by meaningful funding of original research; for taking important steps without consulting the peer review board and for not making public disclosure of WTR’s work and its financial records.
“Given the likely expectation that health-related questions related to the use of wireless technology will persist when the current WTR research program ends in two years, the PRB is concerned that industry has not come forward with a plan to support a continued program of health research,” stated the Harvard peer review board in the 6-page letter.
“The PRB is not comfortable with pursuit of new research endeavors until these questions about continuity of funding and management are addressed,” the board added.
While the board wants Carlo to drop animal exposure studies and emphasize epidemiology more, the Food and Drug Administration has made animal exposure work the top priority for WTR. Industry, meanwhile, wants a clean bill of health from research.
Carlo is clearly a man being pulled in different directions.
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association President Thomas Wheeler, who said he was not aware of the letter until apprised by RCR, declined to say whether he had second thoughts on his choice of Carlo to oversee research. But he said the industry expected a certain level of research from WTR.
“I’m proud of what we’ve we done and we’ll keep on doing it,” said Wheeler. However, CTIA has not settled on how wireless health research will proceed after Carlo departs.
Carlo pins the blame squarely on the cellular industry, saying the Harvard peer review board has a right to expect a better managed research program.
“That message (the PRB letter) was not for me. It was for the industry,” Carlo said. “When we put the 1994 WTR research agenda together, we understood there were the funds to do all this.
“I never have backed away from any study in that research agenda,” said Carlo.
That appears to be part of the problem. The scientific peer review board wants WTR’s research agenda revised and, for all practical purposes, doesn’t want to deal with Carlo until then.
Meanwhile, government health and safety regulators and at least one Congressman want answers.
Carlo, following a meeting last month with federal health and safety regulators, revealed he will not conduct either short-term, sub-chronic or lifetime rat RF exposure studies but will pursue acute (two hour) rat RF exposure experiments, as well as cell culture and epidemiology studies.
WTR plans to replicate Dr. Henry Lai’s research at the University of Washington that found single- and double-strand DNA breaks after radiating rats with low-level RF for two hours at 2 GHz.
But at this late date, some four years after Lai submitted his proposal to WTR, there is no contract. Lai and WTR principals are supposed to meet in January to complete the research itinerary.
“We have to see something before we can doing anything,” said Lai, whose DNA break and memory loss findings have been criticized by some in the scientific community. If research goes forward, it will vary from Lai’s in that rats will be zapped at the same power level but at 800 MHz-the cellular phone frequency-instead of the 2 GHz personal communications services band.
Carlo insists, “WTR is the best mechanism” to conduct such work.
Others disagree, point out that organizations, like SRI International, would have little problem doing the work.
