Jury Still Out on Cell Phone Risks

April 14, 1997

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The jury is still out on whether cellular phones or other wireless devices pose any significant health hazards to users, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal agency that regulates radiation-emitting consumer products.

In an advisory committee meeting, the FDA said that it will be at least five years before studies funded by the World Health Organization have definitive results on cellular telephones and other devices that emit low-level radiation.

Cellular phones emit about 800 to 900 megahertz of microwave radiation. One study in rats showed that 2,450 megahertz of radiation - such as that emitted by a microwave oven - over a two-hour period could cause damage to DNA in the brain, according to researcher Dr. Henry Lai, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

The radiation level in the study was higher than that emitted by newer Personal Communication Systems (PCS) phones, which give off 1,800 to 2,000 megahertz. Such PCS phones will probably replace cellular phones in the future, because the signal is clearer, Lai said.

"DNA damage can cause cancer and can also cause, especially in the brain, neurodegenerative diseases," said Lai, who published the rat study last year. "We found DNA damage, and these are strand breaks (in the DNA). They can be repaired, but there is a possibility that when DNA is repaired that it makes mistakes and the mistakes can lead to health effects such as cancer."

It is not clear if the lower dose of radiation from personal phones poses any risk whatsoever, Lai noted. "Right now there is no indication that the effect is harmful," he said. "When we talk about cell phones, we have to realize that it's an important device that helps a lot of people so you have to balance between the risk and benefit."

This week, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) asked the FDA if they were "fully confident" in the ability of industry-funded research to examine the safety of the phones, according to Wireless Week, a wireless communication-industry Web site.

Wireless Technology Research LL., the Washington, D.C.-based company that received a $25 million industry grant in 1993 to study the health effects of cellular phones, has not yet started crucial animal research - although the grant is due to expire on April 30, 1998, the Web site reported Wednesday. The company said it was sidetracked by the question of whether cellular phones interfered with the function of pacemakers. In September of last year, they recommended that people keep cell phones more than six inches away from an implanted pacemaker.

In a March 1997 letter to the chairman of Wireless Technologies Research, the FDA suggested the company focus research on chronic microwave exposure in animals, particularly in the presence of chemicals that initiate tumor formation. The federal agency also asked that animals studies, including Lai's research, be replicated.

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