WASHINGTON-Aides to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) last week sent out conflicting signals on whether the two lawmakers will follow up legislatively on a government mobile-phone health report expected to be released tomorrow. In April, RCR Wireless News reported the General Accounting Office study is expected to call on federal regulators to provide the public with more information about mobile-phone radiation and associated health issues. The report by GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is not expected to call for federal funding of mobile-phone cancer research as Markey and other lawmakers have advocated in the past. The GAO report likely will say it could be years until scientists determine whether wireless phone pose a health risk. Currently, there are more than 115 million mobile phone subscribers in the United States.
Lieberman’s office said a news briefing will be held Tuesday on the GAO report. “We are planning a follow-up; I am not at liberty to say what the follow-up is,” said Leslie Phillips, press secretary for Lieberman.
But Colin Crowell, a Markey aide, said he did not expect the Massachusetts lawmaker to take any additional action in response to the GAO report.
The public release of the GAO report comes on the heels of a new study, conducted under the auspices of the European Parliament and authored by Dr. Gerard Hyland, that found mobile-phone users are “currently vulnerable to adverse health effects that might be provoked by non-thermal effects of the frequency dimension, which escapes the regulation by the existing intensity-based Safety Guidelines.”
The mobile-phone industry insists the most scientific evidence affirms the safety of phones, while others point to research that has found genetic damage, DNA breaks, memory impairment, increased cancer in lab mice and other bioeffects from mobile-phone radiation.
Various lawsuits and workers’ compensation claims allege cell phones caused brain cancer to individuals in Maryland, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada and California. The industry has yet to lose a phone-cancer lawsuit.
