Buzzing About Safety

By John Greenwald

Like many other Americans, Renee Shafransky has heard the scare stories about how the continual use of cell phones may cause brain cancer. And like many other Americans, she is loath to give up the freedom and convenience that her beloved cell phone brings. So Shafransky, who is studying to become a psychotherapist at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, Calif., takes a rather odd precaution while talking. "I always switch the phone from one side of my head to the other, so I can equalize the radiation," she says. Glenn Wilson, a truck driver in Oak Park, Ill., is worried about cell-phone radiation too. He uses a hands-free headset to divert radio waves away from his brain. "I try not to put it by my head anymore," Wilson says. "The headset is always with me."

There is no proven reason, of course, to think that either of these steps is necessary. Never mind that the Federal Government insists there is no cause for alarm, or that no study has established a link between cell-phone use and illness. Shafransky and Wilson belong to a small but growing group of consumers who are fretting about whether there are health risks. The cell-phone companies contend the fears are unfounded but, savvy marketers that they are, most are quietly introducing more efficient--and therefore lower-radiation--phones.

There seemed to be only good news last month in reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine that found no connection between cell phones and brain cancer. After comparing hundreds of cancer patients who had used cell phones with cancer-free control groups that had similar usage profiles, the studies concluded that cell phones posed no cancer risk. According to the New England Journal, "There was no evidence that the risks were higher among persons who used cellular phones for 60 or more minutes per day or regularly for five or more years."

Both studies were limited in scope and duration, since cancer can take many years to develop. Participants in the JAMA study had used cell phones for less than three years on average, while the New England Journal report included only 45 people--out of 1,581 studied--who had used cell phones for a total of more than 500 hours. Moreover, the New England Journal report said its study sample was too small to spot an increased risk of tumors in the part of the brain near the ear--precisely where tumors caused by radiation might be expected to occur. Both reports said longer-term studies are needed.

The cell-phone industry's best-known naysayer is George Carlo, a scientist who once headed a controversial five-year, $25 million industry-sponsored study of possible radiation hazards. "I just don't want people to put these phones to the sides of their heads," says Carlo, who this month published a scathing book about his findings, called Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age (Carroll & Graf; $25). Carlo maintains that his data show plenty of cause for concern; he uses a hands-free headset that keeps his frequently busy mobile phone away from his brain. But J.E. Moulder, a cancer specialist at the Medical College of Wisconsin and an occasional consultant to the cell-phone industry, questions Carlo's scientific studies and conclusions.

Consumers are thus caught in a non-stop swirl of studies and alarms mixed with repeated assurances by the $100 billion cell-phone industry--led by such respected names as Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia--that there is nothing to worry about. Says Norman Sandler, Motorola's top safety spokesman: "This is not an issue that has suddenly come to the forefront. It has been vigorously discussed in open scientific meetings for years on end." (On one point virtually all sides agree: talking on a cell phone while driving can lead to accidents, which is why communities in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have recently banned the use of handheld phones.)

The industry's posture on radiation is shared by federal watchdogs like the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of electronic devices, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates cell-phone radiation standards. "There is no significant new evidence in the past year that there is need for greater concern than already exists," says Russell Owen, chief of the FDA's Radiation Biology Branch. Concurs Michael Thun, the head of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society: "If there's a risk [of cancer], it's an exceedingly small one."

Science will never be able to prove that cell phones are safe, and it may take decades to identify which users, if any, may be vulnerable to the radio waves. "Nobody knows the consequences of using cell phones from childhood and having radio waves reaching far into the brain," notes Dr. Leif Salford, a Swedish neurosurgeon who has found evidence that cell-phone radiation may weaken the brain's protection against potentially harmful substances in the bloodstream. Salford calls widespread cell-phone use "the world's largest biological experiment ever." He adds, "It would be sad if people found out 20 years from now that they have diseases."

Small wonder that consumers are flocking to low-emission cell phones and buying headsets to distance themselves from their phones. It's the same caution that compelled the Walt Disney Co., distressed by reports that phone radiation might be particularly harmful to children (see box), to vow to stop licensing its cartoon characters for use with cell phones "until there is reliable scientific evidence establishing the absence of any risk."

And with radiation data for individual phones already posted on the Internet www.sardata.com/sardata.htm) manufacturers are bowing to public pressure and beginning to include the ratings--measured in watts per kilogram and known as the specific absorption rate (SAR)--in the packaging with new phones. Says Hollywood talent agent Greg Hughart: "I'll certainly buy the lowest emissions I can find."

The fear of cell-phone radiation is creating fresh markets for entrepreneurs. Sevin Rosen, the venture-capital firm that launched Compaq Computer, recently pumped $2 million into a California start-up that plans to build low-radiation phones. At the same time, a cottage industry has sprung up to market shielding devices that block out radiation, although most have scant scientific evidence to support their claims of effectiveness.

There's a catch here too. Today's cell-phone radiation standards--the federal limit is 1.6 w/kg--are based on decades-old guidelines that are considered somewhat arbitrary even by those who set them. (Recall how tire-safety standards, set 30 years ago, proved inadequate to protect consumers from the recent Firestone fiasco.) There's not even agreement on how to determine whether a cell phone really lives up to the standards. And while companies possess the technology to lower radiation sharply, they fear that marketing safety forcefully would only cause alarm.

"Cell-phone safety is a very touchy and involved subject," says Jorgen Bach Andersen, a professor at Aalborg University in Denmark who pioneered the development of a type of low-radiation antenna that is gradually finding its way into cell phones. "If no one wanted to buy mobile phones any longer because they were afraid of health damage, that would be disastrous for the industry." Some 500 million mobile phones are in use around the world--including 100 million in the U.S.--and manufacturers have been selling new ones at the rate of 400 million a year.

Today manufacturers insist all phones that meet radiation standards are equally safe and that it is pointless to use SAR ratings as a marketing tool. "We constantly strive for designs of antennas and phones that maximize the efficiency of the phones," says Motorola's Sandler. "But there shouldn't be any health implication inferred from any of this."

Companies have no intention of playing up the low radiation of some of their models. For example, Nokia's new 8810, sold in Europe, has an internal directional antenna and an SAR rating of just 0.22 W/kg. But David Stoneham, communications manager for Nokia in Britain, denies that the company installed the antenna for safety reasons. Stoneham says the built-in unit permits extended battery life and a stylish design.

As for the government's safety standards, which the Federal Communications Commission adopted in 1996, they amount to a bundle of compromises that date back to 1982, when cell phones were barely a blip on anyone's radar screen. Researchers found at the time that they could degrade the performance of laboratory animals by bombarding their bodies with 4 W/kg of radio waves. To adapt this to humans, engineers first divided 4 W/kg by a safety factor of 10, and later by a factor of 5, and came up with .08 W/kg. According to a scientific rule of thumb, that is the equivalent of 1.6 W/kg--the federal standard--when the radiation is directed at a specific part of the body.

These standards were developed by professional groups like the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), which is currently considering some revisions. According to John Osepchuk, who heads an IEEE panel, the crucial safety factors represent "more a question of practical judgment than science. That's why I argue that the standard-setting process should [be broadened to] include doctors, lawyers and everyone else," so that environmental, social and other concerns can be factored in as much as possible. Nonetheless, Osepchuk insists that the existing standards are "doubly, if not triply, conservative," meaning that they are highly cautious.

If the standards rest on less than hard science, the methods for determining whether a cell phone meets them look even more arbitrary. The testing procedure involves beaming radio waves into a "phantom"--or stand-in for a human head--and measuring the amount of energy absorption. The results hinge on how near the radiation source is to the phantom and just where it is pointed. Yet there is no agreed-upon method for conducting these tests--an astonishing omission that the IEEE and its European counterpart hope to remedy this year. "Until there is a single, uniform measuring standard for SAR tests," says Nokia's Stoneham, manufacturers "won't use safety as a marketing issue or competitive element."

For its part, Washington has begun a second look at its mostly laissez-faire stance toward the cell-phone industry. A General Accounting Office probe is under way, requested last year by two Democrats, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, that is examining such issues as the basis for the 1.6 W/kg SAR standard and the proper role of federal agencies in regulating safety. Says Markey: "It's time that significant public money be devoted to studying the possible health effects of cell-phone use."

And as is usual in controversial health issues these days, the lawyers may have the last say. Last month the Times of London reported that Peter Angelos, the managing partner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team and a high-profile attorney who has won billions of dollars in damages from the tobacco and asbestos industries, would file suits against cell-phone makers and wireless-phone companies. Cell-phone stocks wobbled. Although Angelos' firm later said no filing was imminent, it has been carefully studying the issue. Angelos has also joined counsel for Baltimore neurologist Christopher Newman, who brought an $800 million suit against Motorola and several wireless carriers for allegedly causing the baseball-size brain cancer near his ear that has left him permanently disabled.

Each person, of course, must decide if precautions are in order. For every example like asbestosis, in which doctors discover the health risks years later, there is at least one Y2K, in which the fears of disaster turn out to be baseless. What is beyond doubt is that the ongoing debate is not going to stop tens of millions of Americans from yakking away on ever newer, sleeker cell phones.

--With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles, Ursula Sautter/Bonn, Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas and Dick Thompson/Washington

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles, Ursula Sautter/Bonn, Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas and Dick Thompson/Washington