Archived Democracy Now Feature

Thursday, December 9th, 1999



Special On Cell Phone s: Are They Harmful to Your Health?



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Today we are having a special program about the safety of cell
phones, and the possible health consequences of regular exposure to the
microwaves that they emit.

A study released last week by the University of Washington shows
that rats exposed to the same kinds of radiation given out by cell
phones for just one hour showed significant memory loss. It also found
some damage to the rats' DNA - some genetic material in their brain
cells had broken into pieces.

One of the first people to talk
about the potential dangers of Cell Phone use is David Reynard, whose
wife died of a brain tumor in 1992. He appeared on the Larry King Live
Show in 1993 after filing a lawsuit against NEC, a Cell Phone operator,
and other companies, alleging that his late wife's tumor was caused in
part by her use of a cell phone.

Reynard's appearance in the
Larry King Live Show caused nationwide concern. At the time there were
15 million cell phone users in the U. S. - now there are about 80
million. The day after the show, the Cellular Telecommunications
Industry Association (CTIA) went on the offensive, with industry
executives claiming that thousands of studies had proved that cell
phone use was safe. The CTIA hired Dr. George Carlo, a public health
scientist with experience as an industry researcher, to conduct health
studies. In 1995, Dr. Carlo found that the cell phones interfere with
cardiac pacemakers. The industry did not like the findings, and cut off
funding to Dr. Carlo. He later was rehired by the industry, and has
since found co-relations between cell phone use and several types of
brain tumors.

Dr. Carlo was also featured in a recent ABC
20/20 special on cell phones. In the special, ABC producers tried to
have several popular models of cell phones tested to determine the
amount of radiation that was being absorbed by the brain - but when
they tried to test the phones in the US, they were turned down by every
lab that does this kind of work. It turns out the labs work for the
industry. They finally were able to test the phones at a lab in Europe.
The tests showed that the vast majority of the cell phones gave off
radiation at a higher dose than the maximum allowed by US regulations.

Meanwhile in Britain, a BBC special on the program Panorama also
highlighted the latest cell phone studies conducted in Sweden, which
found that cell phone users are about 2.5 times as likely as non-users
to suffer tumors in the lobes of the brain adjacent to their "phone
ears."

Tape:

• Henry Lai, professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. He conducted the cellular phone study using laboratory animals.

Guests:

• David Reynard, husband of Susan Ellen Reynard, who died of a brain tumor in 1992. He sued the cell phone industry.
• Dr. George Carlo, public health scientist who was hired by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
• Louis Slesin, editor, Microwave News.
• Alistair Philips of Powerwatch, a consumer organization that deals with power lines and cellular phones.

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