Betreff:
Health Effects
Suppressed. The Sydney Morning Herald. |
Von: Martin Weatherall |
Datum:
Wed, 11 Jul 2007
23:58:08 -0400 |
|
This is another item that is not new.
It is a newspaper story published in Australia, during
December of 2000, but the information is still very relevant today.
It describes how scientific research and information
about health damage from mobile phones was suppressed.
Will mobile (cell phone) companies ever start telling
the truth?
Martin
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert
Riedlinger Why The Truth is NOT Known Robert Hear No Evil: Good Weekend in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald 16 December, 2000. Mobile phones - these days, we couldn't live without
them. But is it safe to live with them? Withs cientists at each other's
throats and spin doctors going into overdrive, Garry Linnell investigates
whether the risk of radiation damage is all in our heads. The howling began four years ago. It started with a whisper, something
so soft it could have been a gentle kiss. But it wasn't long before it turned
into a fierce scream, a torrent of noise that filled his days and nights with
a constant, excruciating howl. It felt as if he had a river roaring through
his head. He did. A river of blood. For two years, Jon Somers* lived with the howling. Doctors probed and
tested him but couldn't work out what was wrong. Somers offered his own
diagnosis, but no-one seemed willing to listen. The only clue came when he
found he could escape the noise at night by holding a hand against his
jugular vein. For some reason, that quietened the roar. Eventually, they found it: a fibrous web had grown inside the skull
behind his right ear, where the blood delivered to the brain is drained away
again by the sigmoid sinus. The roar he had lived with for two years was his
own blood, attempting to force its way through the tangled web of tissue back
to the body. It was a rare condition. Somers' doctors had never seen its like
before, and they consulted with specialists in Chicago and New York, then
operated by sending a balloon upt hrough the vein. That tore the web apart. It
also shattered several key cranial nerves. In the next six months, Somers'
right shoulder wasted away. "Il ooked like someone out of a
concentration camp." He lost his voice for a month. Even now, a couple
of years later, he can still hear the howling, although it is half its
previous volume. Financially and psychologically, Somers' condition has had a profound
impact. But the stress he still experiences has as much to do with the lack
of answers. Why him? Why this rare condition? Somers has a strong suspicion. That
fibrous web behind his ear sat directly where the antenna of his mobile phone
used to sit. Directly. It was an uncanny coincidence. Unless he had some
extraordinarily rare flaw written into his genetic code, the web, he was
convinced, had to have been caused by his mobile. Over the years, his phone
had been a constant companion. In 1990, Somers began running a business that
required him to be in two places at once, on the road and on the phone. The mobile phone had made it possible. His monthly bill was always
more than $1,000, but it was worthi t. That was until the howling started. By 1996, Somers, a middle-aged
businessman, was watchinge verything disintegrate - his professional and
personal life, his health and his ability to handle stress. He was sure his
phone was linked to his illness: "I'm not one to believe in coincidence
that much," he says. But every doctor and specialist he spoke to was
guarded and sceptical. There was nothing in the scientific literature that
suggested mobile phones were a health hazard. Even now, as he makes a painfully slow recovery, Somers remains
frustrated. He is not the only one. The debate over whether mobile phones
have an effect on health is one of the most bitterly contested in science. It's
a debate some maintain is not even worth having. "It's not much of a
story, is it?" asked one industry official. Yet others strongly disagree that the issue is insignificant. There
are now more than 8.5 million mobiles in use in this country; almost one in
two Australians owns one. Within five years, the industry estimates it will
have 110 per cent penetration - that is, almost every Australian will have at
least one mobile, and some will have more. In little more than a decade, they
have changed the way we live and how we communicate with one another. And
phone companies are now suggesting we should provide our teenage children
with phones. In the lead-up to Christmas, giant toy chain Toys 'R' Us has
again joined with Optus to sell pre-paid phones to young teenagers - despite
recommendations,i ncluding one from an expert British committee earlier this
year, cautioning against their use by children until further research
confirms that they are safe for young people. The telecommunications industry remains adamant that mobiles have no
negative impact on health. But there are increasing claims that mobile
radiation is having some sort of biological effect on the human body - that,
if it does not cause cancer, it is at least having an effect on brain
function. The debate has become so heated in recent years that it has spawned
claims of conflict of interest,c onspiracies and cover-ups. Good Weekend has
learned that a leading specialist in the area is threatening legal action against
a government agency for allegedly defaming him, and one of the
highest-profile law firms in the country, Maurice Blackburn Cashman, is
planning Australia's first test case alleging a link between health effects
and mobile phone use. It is also a debate where scientists have strayed from scientific
impartiality to heap personal ridicule on one another, and where spin control
has become just as important as laboratory results, as everyone battles for a
stake in a multi-billion-dollar industry. Jon Somers sighed one afternoon on the phone, his voice tinged with
weariness and a fair dose ofc ynicism. You won't find any concrete answers
out there, he warned. "It's a very grey area. You'll find that the
medical community just doesn't want to know about it." It was easy to
understand his frustration. But then, Somers had not met Bruce Hocking. By the end of 1994, Dr Bruce Hocking had been chief medical officer at
Telstra for 18 years. He had immersed himself in the science of
electromagnetic radiation and was well-versed in the literature: there was
nothing to suggest that the relatively low levels of radiation emitted by
mobile phones had any impact on the health of the user. Still, as 1994 came
to a close, something seemed to be happening. Hocking had taken enough calls
from members of the public, and assessed several Telstras taff similarly
complaining about headaches and tingling sensations on the same side of the
head as they held their mobiles, that he believed a pattern wase merging. In January 1995, Hocking met with Telstra's human relations manager,
who agreed that four company staff members complaining of headaches (all
frequent mobile users) should be referred to a neurologist for examination. A
few weeks later, Hocking discovered that Telstra's lawyers had contacted the
neurologist's office and cancelled thea ppointments. He was outraged. As the
company's most senior medical official, surely such a sensitive decision as
cancelling referrals to a specialist required consultation with him or his department.
Moreover, this was a medical issue, not the province of lawyers. On February 10, 1995, just weeks after the company lawyers had
intervened, Hocking was told that his position with Telstra was being
abolished on the grounds "that my activities were not relevant to core
business". Two weeks after learning he had lost his job, while still with the
company, Hocking wrote to Telstra's legal department saying that he sensed
"a strong conflict of interest in these matters between our duties to
the shareholder, the employees and ourc ustomers. I believe this is an
appropriate matter to refer to the TelstraE thics Committee. "I have spoken to about four customers with similar complaints
and have been impressed at their sincerity and cohesive history. I am
persuaded there may be an effect whichw arrants investigation. I disagree
that headaches are 'nebulous' symptoms.W hilst they are common, good history
taking can reveal diagnostic patterns. "The four staff have produced written statements which give rise
for concern and in my view should be taken seriously ... any protocol for
managing complaints should be employee/customer centred, not phone centred,
as the best way of managing risk for the individual and the company." According to Telstra, Hocking's position was abolished when a decision
was taken to outsource hisf unctions to a private company, and had nothing to
do with his investigations into mobile phones. The company's legal
directorate had intervened during the referrals of staff members to a neurologist
because normal occupational andh ealth procedures had not been followed. "The normal process is to look at all the ergonomics and
occupational health issues, not just mobile phones," a spokesperson told
me. "In this instance, the view at the time was that not all avenues had
been investigated, that Hocking had gone off and made these appointments
having spoken to HR, but hadn't looked at all the other things it could be,
that he was making assessments without investigating all the other avenues."
Hocking has contested this view, saying the "normal"
procedure was not introduced by Telstra until after the incident with the
four employees. Telstra acknowledges that a "formal" process was
not in place at the time, but says that, at any rate, "the records
indicate that none of the individuals progressed with the need for medical
examination". Out on his own, Hocking pursued the issue. After accepting a
redundancy package, he set up as a consultant in occupational medicine and
began a study of 40 mobile phone users who were complaining of uncomfortable
symptoms from mobile use, ranging from blurred vision to nausea. One man particularly interested him. Suffering headaches on the right
side of his head where hea lways used his mobile phone, the man had been
seeing neurologists for more than a year. But no tumours or any other
explanation could be found. Hocking and a clinical neurophysiologist
conducted detailed studies on the man's individual nerve fibres and their
sensitivity to electrical currents. They found significant differences
between the nerves on the side where the patient had always used his mobile,
and those on the other side of his head. Hocking is a quietly spoken man, extremely nervous about the prospect
of attracting publicity in a field where you can be shot down almost
immediately. In September this year, though, he addressed a Senate inquiry
into the issue of electromagnetic emissions, and told it about the
differences in the man's nerve sensitivity: "This is the first time that
I am aware of that there has been a cleard emonstration of a health effect in
humans attributable to a mobile phone," he said. "There is
considerable likelihood that mobile phones, at the low levels of
radio-frequency which they operate on, are causing disturbances of neural
function." Other studies, too, have suggested that brain patterns may be affected
by mobile phone use. The problem is that no-one seems to know how, or what
the consequences may be. At Bristol University, two groups of 18 students
were given a variety of memory and reaction-time tests. A control group was exposed to 25 minutes of radiation at mobile phone
levels. The scientist conducting the study, Alan Preece, reported a 4 per
cent improvement in reaction times - which the industry seized upon as proof
that "mobiles are good for you". Another study, conducted by the
sleep research unit at the University of Zurich, exposed test subjects to the
electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile phones and found that they affect
brain function. In one of the tests, subjects were exposed to 15-minute periods of
mobile phone radiation at am aximum of half the recommended international
exposure limit. The study found that subjects' brainwaves were altered
"in a specific frequency range ... these changes manifested rapidly and
subsided in the course of the night." At Lund University in Sweden, experiments with rats suggested that
phone radiation can breach ab arrier that normally prevents blood toxins from
entering the brain. The studies found that protein albumen, which can kill
nerve cells and is thought to be a cause in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
diseases, had crossed the barrier after the rats had been exposed to
microwave radiation comparable to that emitted bym obiles. While some other studies around the world have reached similar
conclusions, others show no impact from mobile phone use. Even the Zurich
research concluded that claims of "possible adverse effects on human
health are premature because the underlying mechanisms are unknown". The telecommunications industry has long maintained that mobile phones
operate within world safetyg uidelines and, given that mobiles have been in
use for more than a decade, any symptoms such as cancerous tumours or other
side-effects should have beguns howing up by now. According to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association
(AMTA), an industry bodyr epresenting the main carriers, "the claim that
the jury is still out in relation to radio-frequency energy and health is
misleading. After repeatedr eviews of the large body of scientific literature
in this field ... numerous experts have reached the same verdict: there is no
substantiated scientifice vidence that using mobile phones can cause adverse
health effects of anyk ind." The industry holds up as its most authoritative voice an American
scientist, Dr John Moulder, a professor of radiation oncology at the
Wisconsin Medical School. AMTA paid Moulder tow rite a comprehensive
assessment of the links between radio-frequency radiation and cancer. While
noting there were no strong epidemiology (population) studies and very few
strong animal studies, he concluded that evidence for a causal link was
"weak to non-existent". When Good Weekend initially contacted AMTA, its chief executive had
just resigned, and the call was quickly returned instead by a representative
of Burson Marsteller, thew orld's biggest public relations firm. While
declining to speak on the record, the spokesman pointed to a long list of
AMTA statements highlighting thatr epeated studies had found no evidence that
mobile radiation was linked toc ancer. For companies whose core business is communication, the telecom giants
have sometimes proved reluctant to encourage the free flow of information,
especially when it comes to studies that suggest health risks to their
employees. In 1984, the late Fred Hollows published a study in the prestigious
journal The Lancet that foundT elstra employees exposed to microwaves were
three times more likely to develop cataracts than linesmen not exposed to
such radiation. Telstra reportedly complained to the government and Hollows'
university that the study had been published without its permission. When
Hollows was unable to obtain furtherf unding for a follow-up study, some believed
Telstra's protests had directly or indirectly put an end to the professor's
plans for further research in thea rea. In 1996, after rookie Democrat Senator Lyn Allison was given her
party's telecommunications portfolio, she called for more research into the
health effects of electromagnetic radiation. Following that call, she says,
Telstra invited her to tour itsr esearch laboratories in Melbourne. According
to her, what followed "was a big show. I was astounded to find how
defensive they were and unwilling to countenance that there might be ap
roblem. I would have thought scientists anywhere are true to their profession
... and interested in discovering the facts - whatever they might be." Allison now chairs the Senate committee inquiring into electromagnetic
emissions, which will report to Parliament early next year. She says the
inquiry has been "an eye-opener" for some of her parliamentary
colleagues and she sees a "distinct pattern emerging of funding not
being made available to those doing certain research". Certainly, after Bruce Hocking left Telstra, his request for funding
for a second study of his into links between cancer and radiation from
transmission towers was knocked back. More recently, Adelaide scientist Dr Pamela Sykes released the results
of a preliminary study into the effects of mobile phone radiation on mice. Believing
her findings might have implications for the development of cancers, she
wanted to investigate further, but the National Health and Medical Research
Council denied her further funds. Arguing that this was simply policy, the
NHMRC said Sykes would need to re-apply for a grant in its next round of
funding. Meanwhile, an Australian Consumers Association spokesman noted that
customer concern about mobile phones wasi ncreased by the perception
"that a number of studies stop at a critical time". At least two other senators on the committee do not share Allison's
view - Liberal John Tierney and Labor's Mark Bishop. "The bottom
line," says Tierney about any claims of mobiles affecting health,
"is that there's no science behind any oft his." Bishop also says
he is unlikely to change his view because of the overwhelming scientific
evidence that mobiles are safe. But some say there is a reason the studies don't show any negative
effects. According to Sarah Benson, a researcher in Senator Allison's office,
"Some of our best witnesses are too afraid to appear before the
committee because of intimidation. One man who has experienced fairly
pronounced health problems as a result of his phone has not appeared, as he
is afraid of losing his job with one of the carriers." Benson says
independent scientists "continually struggle to maintain their public
integrity" when confronted by campaigns to discredit them by other
scientists employed by industry and government. One scientist who says he has suffered this treatment is New Zealander
Dr Neil Cherry, who is oftend isparaged for his origins as a meteorologist
and has been labelled a "snake-oil merchant" and a "shameless
charlatan" by theM inister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston. In
turn, Cherry is highly critical of what he sees as a cover-up of the links
between mobile phones and health: "How can you say there are no effects?
I know of 16 studies that show radio-frequency microwaves can damage
chromosomes. The evidence is sos trong that [the telecommunication companies]
lie about them. They constantly seek out the weak areas of a study and
highlight those. When a very strong study comes along, they say it must be
replicated." Cherry says he knows ofs everal labs in the US where
scientists have been intimidated into hushing up negative results from mobile
phone studies. He declines, however, to namet hem. Among the scientists Cherry has clashed with is Dr Michael Repacholi,
who now heads a criticalf ive-year study into the issue on behalf of the
World Health Organisation.R epacholi, now based in Geneva, was the architect
of one of the most significant experiments ever carried out on the effects of
mobile phone radiation. For 18 months between 1993 and 1995, he led a team of
scientists at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a Telstra-funded experiment
using transgenic mice predisposed to certain types of cancerous tumours. To
Repacholi's surprise, and perhaps the dismay of the industry, the experiment
found that the mice exposed to mobile phone radio frequencies experienced
more than double the incidence of lymphoma than the control group. The results, however, were not announced until 1997, two years later,
and then at a press conference to which several key journalists in the field
were not invited. One of them, a freelancer and researcher in the area,
Stewart Fist, maintains it was a deliberate ploy by the industry to keep the
experiment's results as low-key as possible. But Telstra says it did not see
the results until the study had been accepted for publication, and that
arrangements for the press conference were left up to the hospital. (Members
of the experimental team have been quoted as saying the study's results were
"too hot to handle" for some of the world's most renowned
scientific journals, thus delaying its official publication.) The results were quickly disparaged. Senator Alston quipped that the
study proved only that mice predisposed to cancer should not use mobiles. Meant
to be a dismissive one-liner, it was hardly original. A variation of the
quote had been coined by Burson Marsteller when it helped write the
Australian industry's response to the mouse study. Some, like Cherry, wondered why Telstra would fund a study using mice
if the results were irrelevant. Cherry also claims Michael Repacholi's
credibility is damaged by his being too closely identified with the
telecommunications industry. (Microwave News reported that Repacholi recently
visited China accompanied by industryr epresentatives. Repacholi says his
visit was a private one, and that he had no connection with any industry
figures lobbying the Chinese government for business.) Repacholi was reportedly stunned by the study's findings, saying at
the time of its release: "I'm cast as a person who doesn't believe there
are any biological effects at low levels [of radio-frequency energy] ... Well,
I feel that, heavens, there could be something there that we really do need
to look at." A new version of the mouse study is now being carried out
at Royal Adelaide Hospital at a cost of $1.2 million. Another figure involved in the original study was Dr Ken Joyner, a
former scientist with Telstra, now employed by Motorola. Joyner is also a
member of an expert committee on theN HMRC, which is responsible for doling
out $4.5 million to studies on the mobile phone issue. While he does not have
a vote, Joyner is there as an adviserb ecause of his expertise, and is
considered an influential figure. But his role has raised claims before the
Senate inquiry of a potential conflict of interest. When contacted to discuss
these and other issues in the debate, he agreed there were "a lot of
egos involved". He said he would consider the request and return the
call. He then rang Burson Marsteller to advise them that he had been
contacted by the media. It is not the first time claims have been made about industry being
too close to government and those who control research funding. When the
Senate inquiry began earlier this year, the Federal Government's regulatory
body, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
(ARPANSA), compiled a confidential analysis of the inquiry's submissions. In
that analysis, obtained by Good Weekend, there is a paragraph that reads:
"Nine submissions presented pseudo-scientific evidence. Contributors of
such erroneous information were mainly lobby groups or 'crusader' scientists
such as Peter French." Dr Peter French is the principal scientific officer and manager for
the Centre of Immunology at StV incent's Hospital in Sydney. Outraged by the
comments from what he believes should be an impartial government body, French
has consulted a lawyer and is considering suing ARPANSA for defaming him. "You
get branded very easily in this business," says French. "They
labelled me as a crusader. As a scientist, I find that highly offensive. I
think there's quite a lot of evidence that there is a potential health risk,
but I base that purely on the science and what I have seen." Just recently, French bought himself a hands-free set for his mobile. He
had waited a long time before doing this, he says, because he wanted concrete
proof that mobile phones caused health problems. According to French, that
proof confronted him in the tearoom of his department one afternoon a few
weeks ago. Here is one of the few facts in the mobile phone debate that is not in
dispute: a small amount ofr adiation enters your head whenever you use your
mobile, which usually leads to a rise in temperature of about 0.11° Celsius. This
is too low for anyh eat-related problem to occur. Most scientists say
heat-related problems - known as thermal heating - occur with temperature
rises of one to two degrees. But earlier this year, a paper published in
Nature described how a team of British researchers found that microwaves at a
level equivalent to a rise in temperature of .001 (thousands of times weaker
than mobile phone radiation) created a& quot;heat-shock" response in
the subjects of their experiments, nematode worms. The heat-shock response is a defensive mechanism of the body. A rise
in temperature - which can occur through heat or the use of certain chemicals
and drugs - can trigger the response. When the temperature rises, proteins in
living cells can "unfold" or become damaged. The cell senses this
"unfolding" and sends out teams of heat-shock proteins to
"refold" the original proteins. The nematode worm study claimed
that this mechanism was being triggered at low, non-thermal levels. But French had his "Eureka!" moment when, while sipping a
cup of tea in the staffroom, he was reading a paper in the latest issue of
the American Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Two scientists who had
reviewed the literature on heat-shock proteins concluded that evidence
existed which proved that turning on ther esponse chronically or
inappropriately could lead to cells becoming cancerous. The paper made no
reference to mobile phones or radio frequency. But Frenchb elieves he is the
first to see a connection. He is now writing a paper on the implications and
planning to submit it to one of the world's most influential scientific
journals. "You can now make a link between mobile phones and cancer,"
says French. "It's the first time this link has been made. And what it
means is, we don't need to wait 30 years to develop significant
precautions." When French briefed the Senate inquiry last month, one senator
wondered aloud if a Nobel Prize might not be in the offing. French should be
so lucky. Within a day of raising French's findings with AMTA, Good Weekend
was told by an industry representative toc ontact Dr Joseph Roti Roti at
Washington University in Missouri. According to AMTA, Roti Roti is an
acknowledged world expert in heat-shock proteins. Roti Roti wasn't aware of the latest US study, the one that had
grabbed French's attention. He said he had been working in the area for five
years (Motorola has funded his research into cell phones) and had not
detected any evidence that radio frequency couldt rigger the heat-shock
response. A few days later, he e-mailed back, saying he had come across the
US paper, but that it was a review of other experiments and "as such, it
contains no new experimental data". So it goes. Claim meets counterclaim, one punch is met by another. Good
science is supposed to work like this, but without the vitriol and dogmatism
that bogs down this debate. Several lawsuits have been filed around the world
over the past five years, but none has progressed because of lack of solid
scientific evidence to support claims of health side-effects. Maurice
Blackburn Cashman is considering launching Australia's first test case,
saying that "from the research investigations which we have undertaken
to date, it would appear that there is an increasing body of empirical data
pointing to a link between use of mobile phones and the development of
certain personal injuries". But whether they get very far is another matter. Jon Somers was right.
There were no solid answers. Just a great deal of howling. On a bad day,
Somers still requires massive doses ofp ainkillers to keep his own howling at
bay, but he hopes that some day in the future, he will be able to return to
work. He has kept his mobile phone. It's just that he no longer has a need
to use it.
Mobile phones and health effects: