WASHINGTON-Sources say Baltimore attorney Peter Angelos will drop an $800 million mobile-phone brain cancer lawsuit but will continue to press ahead with class-action lawsuits to force the wireless industry to supply consumers with radiation-reducing headsets, a development that could have a chilling effect on future heath-related litigation.
“I can’t make comments about my client … I just can’t talk about it,” said John Pica, an attorney at the Angelos law firm who is intricately involved in mobile-phone cancer and headset lawsuits.
Earlier this year, Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles and a powerful trial attorney who has won hundreds of millions of dollars suing asbestos and tobacco manufacturers, took control of legal representation of 41-year-old neurologist Christopher Newman from Baltimore attorney Joanne Suder. Newman has brain cancer and his lawsuit alleges that heavy cell-phone use caused the disease.
Newman, who could not be reached for comment, is said to have written a scathing letter to Angelos questioning why-if Angelos felt so passionately about the wireless health issue-he would drop the cancer case but pursue litigation that argues the 115 million mobile-phone users need headsets to prevent health risks. Some observers suggested the chances of winning the headset cases are much better and could yield more monetary damages than the Newman case.
Angelos has joined other law firms around the country in class-action headset lawsuits filed in Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Another lawsuit is being filed in Georgia.
Angelos apparently intends to withdraw from the case and ask the court to dismiss it without prejudice. That means Newman could re-file the lawsuit using new attorneys. While there was talk last week of lining up another high-profile law firm to represent Newman, doing so could be difficult in the aftermath of the expected departure of Angelos-a plaintiff’s lawyer and a generous Democratic Party patron with a good track record in personal injury litigation-from the case.
The dramatic turnabout comes on the heels of a new General Accounting Office report that concludes, while no research to date has linked cell phones to brain cancer, a health risk cannot be ruled out until more research is conducted. The report by GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, recommended the Federal Communications Commission and the Food and Drug Administration make more information on mobile-phone radiation and health issues available to the public in a clear and understandable fashion on the Internet.
GAO also raised questions of potential conflicts of interest regarding a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between the cellular industry and the FDA, and lawmakers hinted the arrangement might have to be restructured.
“I believe that the FDA must have more control. The agreement as it’s laid out in the GAO report is unacceptable,” said Rep. Edward Markey, (D-Mass.), who along with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (DConn.) requested the GAO report. He said special attention should be given to potential health risks posed to children who use cell phones. Indeed, the British medical community last week raised the same concern.
“We cannot not have a cooperative agreement in which industry has a stake in the results and can handcuff a federal agency in terms of the selection of who the researchers are, what the research is and whether or not the results become public,” said Markey.
CTIA said it will follow FDA recommendations for research as a follow-up to a six-year, $28 million research program funded by cellular carriers and manufacturers that found genetic damage in human blood from mobile-phone radiation and increases in a rare form of brain tumor. Last week, there were indications the first contract awarded under the CRADA will go the researchers in North Carolina who found genetic damage from phone radiation when working for Wireless Technology Research L.L.C.
“Today’s GAO report is what the public health experts have said; that the science to date shows no adverse health effects from the use of wireless phones,” said CTIA President Thomas Wheeler.
Some critics question that view, noting that research has found genetic damage, DNA breaks, eye cancer, memory impairment and other neurological problems associated with mobile-phone radiation.
Dr. George Carlo, who headed the CTIA-funded research before breaking with industry after getting positive results, said the GAO report has strengths and weaknesses.
“The GAO report underscores the problem that Martin Schram and I warned of in our book, `Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age’: that the government and the industry continue to treat this as a political and public-relations problem instead of the public health and consumer protection problem that it is,” said Carlo. “As such, the report adds no new science or anything else new that can be used by consumers to protect themselves. It offers words that only serve to protect the interests of the industry and cover the behinds of the politicians.
GAO also said the FCC needs to issue further guidance on phone radiation measurement procedures to reduce variations in testing, a problem created because of the lack of an industry standard. The FCC and FDA are working with industry to develop such guidelines. Moreover, the report said the FCC should beef up staffing on mobile-phone radiation safety oversight.
In letters sent to the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, Lieberman and Markey asked the two agencies to review whether Congress should fund health research on mobile phones since the United States-with 115 million mobile-phone subscribers-is doing very little scientific work.
“Congressman Markey and I are going to stay on this case,” said Lieberman.
