OVERPOWERED

By 1971, radar and similar technology had been in wide use by the military for decades. Throughout this time, there had been concerns of biological effects—baldness and sterility chief among them—in those exposed to RF from radar technologies.² Increasingly concerned with the possible negative health effects on its personnel, the US Navy wanted to understand precisely what the known science of the time indicated. So in 1971, the Navy assigned Zory Glaser, a young PhD working at the Naval Medical Research Institute, the task of creating an inventory of the science of biological effects resulting from RF exposure.³

Dr. Glaser reviewed and cited over 3,000 scientific studies on the biological effects of exposure to EMF in the first version of what he referred to as his RF/Microwave Bioeffects Bibliography.⁴ Many of these experiments had been conducted by the Soviet military (which was also very interested in the same questions). Impressed with these results, the Navy asked Dr. Glaser to maintain his bibliography over time, which he did over the following decades, ultimately accumulating data from over 6,000 separate studies.⁵

From Glaser’s work, we know that the US and former-Soviet military have been aware of the potential for negative health effects resulting from exposure to RF and MW radiation—even at very low power levels—for over 50 years. Work published in 1926 by a surgeon with the US Public Health Service demonstrated lethal results from exposure to ultrashortwave EMF in mice. The surgeon attributed the mortality to mechanisms other than the heat response, concluding that exposure to EM radiation resulted in nonthermal health effects in the animals.⁶ Two years later, German researchers reported fatalities in mice, rats, and flies from similar short-wave exposures.⁷ In the early 1930s, a zoologist at the University of Pennsylvania noted the effect of EM radiation on wasps and frogs, concluding, “it is evident here that high frequency and heat are by no means synonymous and that though the electrostatic field carries with it potentialities for internal heat as a by-product, there is at the same time another and little understood reaction.”⁸

In 1948, two groups of researchers, working independently, both noted nonthermal effects resulting from EM radiation exposure. Scientists at the Mayo Clinic noted the incidence of cataracts in dogs following exposure to microwave radiation, and researchers at the University of Iowa noted that exposure to microwaves resulted in cataracts in rabbits and dogs, and “testicular degradation” in rats.⁹

In the early 1950s, a physician named John T. McLaughlin was working at Hughes Aircraft Corporation in California, where he noted between 75 and 100 cases of a form of internal bleeding known as purpura hemorrhagica among 6,000 workers—an unusually high incidence. McLaughlin suspected microwave radiation exposure as the cause, and in the course of his investigation, he also noted several cases of cataracts and headaches among those working near sources of microwave radiation.¹⁰

Soviet scientists recognized that EMF at frequencies between 30 MHz and 300 GHz could affect the human circulatory system (altering heart rate and blood pressure) and nervous system, even at levels too weak to produce thermal effects. Further, these scientists found that symptoms depended on the length of employment and degree of exposure, demonstrating a clear dose-response relationship.

The Soviets were so interested in the health effects of microwave radiation, that they weaponized it. In one prominent case, it subsequently became known that the Soviets bombarded the US embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation since the 1950s until the mid-1980s—“at the same time that they were pursuing a very active research program on low-level, chronic effects.”¹¹ The exposures resulted in reports of “inexplicable health problems” among the embassy personnel; many believe that the death of former US ambassador Walter Stoessel from leukemia at the age of 66 resulted from his exposure to Soviet microwaves during his tenure in Moscow from 1974 to 1976.¹²

These are just a handful of the scores of studies covered in Glaser’s bibliography. Still, results such as these from scores of studies did not set off alarm bells in the general public, and understandably so, given that the public still did not commonly have the devices that produced RF and MW radiation, such as the cell and cordless phones, WiFi networks, and microwave ovens that are ubiquitous today. While there were some exceptions (such as those residents near Skrunda, Latvia, exposed to high levels of RF from the nearby military base discussed earlier), in general the public had no exposure to these frequency ranges of damaging non-ionizing radiation. Of course, that started to change in the 1980s, with the introduction of cell- and cordless-phone technologies.

By 1989, cell phone use was still quite limited in the United States, with only approximately 1.4% of the population having cell phone access.¹³ Still, public concern had grown to the point where the US Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment issued a paper calling for Americans to practice “prudent avoidance” with EMF exposure in the home.¹⁴ In 1989, investigative science writer Paul Brodeur authored the first popular national article highlighting the public health threat of power-line-frequency EMF and the lack of government action on the subject in a three-part series for the New Yorker.¹⁵ Awareness of the potential dangers of EMF exposure was starting to enter the public sphere. It was in this context that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated a review of the known science on the biological effects of exposure to RF/ MW radiation, with the goal of releasing an official summary.

In one of the drafts of this report, released in March 1990, the EPA’s Office of Health and Environmental Assessment (OHEA), then headed by Dr. Robert McGaughy, recommended that EMFs be formally designated as known “probable human carcinogens” and that RF/MW radiation in particular should be considered a “possible human caricinogen” (along with other class B carcinogens such as DDT, PCBs, and formaldehyde).¹⁶

Emphasizing the significance of this wording, the New York Times reported on the draft. The 1990 article entitled “Study Says Electrical Fields Could Be Linked to Cancer” quoted then-OHEA director, Dr. William Farland, who noted an important shift: “Over the past few years, more and more people have begun to say there does seem to be something there, that we need to do more work, whereas before we were saying that it was not worth pursuing. This is an important step in getting more research done.”¹⁷

The following year, however, this language was stripped from the draft of the report by the EPA Science Advisory Board and the Nonionizing Electric and Magnetic Fields Subcommittee of the Radiation Advisory Committee.¹⁸ In its place was added the following:

At this time such a characterization regarding the link between cancer and exposure to EMFs is not appropriate because the basic nature of the interaction between EMFs and biological processes leading to cancer is not understood.¹⁹

Strangely, the same page stated that several studies suggested a “causal link” between exposure to 60 Hz EMF and leukemia and lymphoma in children and workers.²⁰ Despite that inclusion, the most explosive elements of the EPA’s initial findings—what Dr. Farland had explained as “an important step in getting more research done”—had been scrubbed from the report.

The EPA explained that use of the term carcinogen was “not appropriate” until better data existed demonstrating this link (what levels of exposure, at which frequencies of EMF, for what duration, caused which specific health outcomes). In short, the EPA explained that while it had some data indicating the health risks from cell phone radiation, it needed more specific proof before labeling EMF as carcinogenic.

As an external observer, it is impossible to say what occurred behind the scenes to trigger the removal of this potentially explosive language from its report. There can be no doubt, however, that the 1990 EPA draft coincided with an aggressive effort from the wireless industry to refute any such potential associations between cell phone radiation and negative health outcomes—particularly cancer—in humans. After all, the government was considering labeling its core products as carcinogenic.

By the mid-1990s, the wireless industry’s effort to defang the EPA was in full swing. In 1995, Douglas Bannerman of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association in Arlington, Virginia, argued that “we should not have individual agencies popping up and giving their own risk assessments.”²¹ The US Senate agreed, cutting $350,000 from the EPA’s budget because the Senate Appropriations Committee “believes [the] EPA should not engage in EMF activities.”²² By 1996, due to “budgetary uncertainties,” McGaughy explained that “the report will not come out in the foreseeable future.”²³ The EPA never issued its report; subsequent federal reviews of EMF research have been conducted by other agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC),²⁴ both of which conclude that there is no scientifically demonstrated risk from EMF exposure.

The 1990 draft report from the EPA may have set off a firestorm, but its effects were limited. By and large, the public remained unaware of the EMF issue. That started to change on January 21, 1993.

That evening, David Reynard, a Florida businessman from Madeira Beach, appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live to announce his lawsuit against the cellular phone industry. He explained that his 33-year-old wife, Susan, had died of a brain tumor seven months earlier. Her fatal illness, he alleged, was directly linked to her cell phone use. Just four years earlier, Susan had started using the wireless device when she became pregnant, after Reynard had given her his portable phone. In spite of many unusual complications during her pregnancy, Susan eventually gave birth to a healthy baby, six weeks premature. That’s when she underwent an MRI, and the tumor was detected.

KING: When did you start to think, “This has something to do with the cellular phone?”

REYNARD: I think when I saw the first MRI and saw the location of the tumor. It appeared that it was in the location directly next to the antenna, and the tumor seemed to be growing inward from that direction.

Reynard made a compelling presentation of the X-rays, which showed the tumor right next to where his wife had held the phone against her head. Reynard’s legal action against the cell phone manufacturer, NEC, launched their mission to raise public awareness about their concerns. “I don’t think [people] realize . . . that these are microwave devices,” David said. He then made a bold comparison between cell phones and cigarettes, expressing his strong belief that the wireless devices should also carry FDA health warning labels on the packaging.

King pointed out that the cellular phone was the number one Christmas gift that year, which saw over 16 million Americans with cell phone subscriptions,²⁵ up from just 3.5 million four years earlier.

The next day, the Reynard lawsuit headlines splashed across front pages nationwide. The AP announced that there was a “widower on a mission against cellular phones.”²⁶ “Telephone firms fight cancerous connection,” explained Reuters.²⁷ “Woman’s Death Fuels Phone Fears, Cancer Scare Rocks Cellular Industry,” wrote Florida’s Palm Beach Post.²⁸ The Sarasota Herald-Tribune headlined their coverage of the Reynard case with “Cellular Phone Scare Hits Stock Markets.” The article went on to say that “potential customers, who had been signing up at a rate of more than 7,000 a day, are now asking [cell phone] dealers pointed questions or delaying purchases.”²⁹

The Reynard case was dismissed by the Florida Circuit Court in 1995 on the basis of insufficient evidence. Yet, having a face to put to this potential hazard sparked the public’s concern. Telecommunications stocks took a massive blow. Shares of Motorola plunged 20% by January 30th compared to the price the day before Reynard went on Larry King. McCaw Cellular Communications (another large cellular provider at the time) plunged 15% in the same timeframe.³⁰ There was no way around it: the cellular phone industry had a major public-relations problem on its hands.

The wireless industry immediately went into crisis-management mode. Thomas Wheeler, then president of the Washington, D.C.-based wireless trade group known today as CTIA—The Wireless Association, promptly called a news conference to reassure the public. He issued a statement saying that more than 10,000 studies over 40 years showed no evidence linking cell phones and health hazards. The problem was that Wheeler could not actually produce any scientific studies to back up his claims. The studies to which he referred only assessed microwave ovens.

At the same time, US Congressman Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, asked the US General Accounting Office (GAO) to research whether the phones posed a health risk. He convened a spurof-the-moment telecommunications meeting to hear testimony about the safety of cell phones. It became clear that the wireless industry had not been required to do any premarket testing or postmarket surveillance on the health effects of their product. Even so, the FDA released a statement announcing that “there is no proof that cellular telephones are harmful”³¹ but nevertheless encouraged consumers to limit the time they spend talking on the phones if they were concerned.

Feeling the pressure, Wheeler pledged $25 million toward a research initiative to dispel the public’s fears. The Wireless Technology Research (WTR) research program, as it came to be called, was set up to conduct the studies, with oversight from the FDA. Dr. George Carlo, a well-known epidemiologist and medical scientist, was tapped to lead the effort. He ultimately assembled a team of 200 scientific experts charged with examining the potential dangers of cell phones. And, by his own account, Carlo was initially successful in this position, boasting in 1994 that “a concerted industry response succeeded in blunting unsubstantiated allegations about a link to brain cancer in early 1993”³² (referring to the Reynard case). (To get an idea of the politics of the EMF issue, note that the same Thomas Wheeler was nominated by President Obama in 2013 to head the FDA.)

Five years later, in February 1999, Carlo released the WTR results to the public, and his findings stunned the very industry that hired him. According to his report presented to the annual CTIA convention in California, Carlo had found the presence of micronuclei (DNA fragments) in the blood, indicating that the radiation from mobile phones had caused irreparable DNA damage in cells. (As noted earlier, the relationship between micronuclei and cancer is so strong that physicians around the world test for the presence of micronuclei in the circulation to identify patients likely to develop cancer.)

These conclusions were not well received by the wireless industry. The CTIA responded by discontinuing Carlo’s funding and trying to discredit him and his six years of research. Carlo has subsequently become a public health activist on the subject of EMF pollution. In 2010 he said, “today, I sit here extremely frustrated and concerned that appropriate steps have not been taken by the wireless industry to protect consumers.” He continued:

Indications are that some segments of the industry have ignored the scientific findings suggesting potential health effects, have repeatedly and falsely claimed that wireless phones are safe for all consumers including children, and have created an illusion of responsible follow-up by calling for and supporting more research.³³

Unfortunately, the response of industry to Carlo and his work is not anomalous. Quite the opposite, it is indicative of a larger pattern, demonstrating some of the core ways in which industry interests use the business of science to manipulate the scientific data that is produced and how it is framed, disseminated, and interpreted. The type of science that researches the biological and health effects of EMF is expensive, requiring significant funding—money that comes from the industry that trades in the product being researched. By controlling the funding of the science, industry significantly influences the publicly accessible data on this vital public health issue.

Today, the work of Drs. Henry Lai and Narendra Singh, demonstrating DNA damage from non-ionizing EMF (discussed in chapter 4) is almost two decades old, and the intervening years have seen multiple peer-reviewed studies that have supported its results. At the time, however, when common wisdom held that non-ionizing EMF was biologically benign, the news reverberated throughout the still-nascent cell phone industry. Ironically, as Lai explains, they weren’t looking to set off any controversy. Indeed, Lai and Singh weren’t even considering cell phones when they executed this research—instead, they were focused on the health effects of RF exposure from radar.

Even so, attempts were made to have Lai discredited, defunded, and fired. In retrospect, we know this effort was intentional. An internal memo leaked from inside Motorola (at the time, the world’s second largest cell phone maker) and published in Microwave News reads that Motorola executives believed they had “sufficiently war-gamed” Lai and his study.

After the release of the DNA strand-break study, someone called the NIH (from whom Lai received research funding) anonymously to report that Lai was using the funds to execute research outside of the approved scope of the grant. The NIH investigated and eventually dismissed these allegations.³⁴ Despite the harassment, Lai wanted to continue his research. He applied for and received funding under CTIA’s WTR program. But he found the conditions of the grant and the way in which it was managed so unusual and disheartening that he expressed his concerns in a public letter published in Microwave News, where he lamented the “consistent pattern of chaotic corruption and deception” in the WTR research program.³⁵

In response, the CTIA sent multiple letters to the president of the University of Washington (where Lai and Singh were on faculty), demanding that both be fired.³⁶ (I was among those who sent letters in support of Lai to the University of Washington at the time.) They retained their jobs but proceeded to see their research funding dry up. In the late 1990s, Lai began to search for European funding sources,later explaining that the United States had been on “the cutting edge of this whole area for the last 30 years. [But] right now, we’re the Third World country. We’re not doing research at all.”³⁷

While discrediting and defunding Lai was part of Motorola’s strategy, there were other important aspects to their plan. Another part of Motorola’s “war game” against Lai and Singh involved Dr. Jerry Phillips, a researcher based in the laboratories of Dr. Ross Adey in Loma Linda, California.

In the early 1990s, concerned with the implications of emerging research indicating potential health effects of exposure to EMF from cell phones, Motorola had begun sponsoring Phillips to perform research under their auspices. Phillips had spent years investigating the potential health effects of 60Hz-fields associated with power lines and electrical wiring under a series of grants provided by the US Department of Energy. With this new round of research sponsorship, Phillips expanded his inquiries further up the EM spectrum.

This funding was already in place when Lai and Singh published their groundbreaking results and Motorola contacted Phillips, asking him (according to Phillips) to “put a spin on the study” that would be more favorable to Motorola.³⁸ Phillips declined but did offer to conduct a similar trial, to see if he could replicate Lai and Singh’s results. Motorola provided funding, and the work began. To ensure that his team was able to actually conduct a study that properly replicated the work of Lai and Singh, Phillips began this effort by sending two of his research assistants to work in Lai’s laboratory and learn his techniques.

Initially, Phillips and Motorola had “very cordial” relations. “But only until we started getting data that they didn’t like,” explains Phillips³⁹—which was almost immediately. The first set of data Phillips prepared for publication appeared to demonstrate a biological effect of microwave exposure on proto-oncogenes (a normal gene that has the potential to become carcinogenic)—similar to effects Phillips had observed with his earlier work with 60 Hz EMF. Phillips’s draft of the paper noted the potential health effects indicated by the changes in proto-oncogenes. Motorola’s head of research, Mays Swicord (who had come to Motorola from his previous job at the US Food and Drug Administration⁴⁰), contacted Phillips and expressed his desire for that language to be changed. Phillips refused. Yet, when Phillips saw the published paper in Bioelectromagnetics, the language had been altered, per Motorola’s preferences conveyed by Swicord to express doubt as to the physiological implications of the findings. Motorola had edited Phillips’s document, without his consent, to present the data with a less damaging analysis.

Shortly thereafter, Phillips requested approval from Motorola to present results from the Motorola-funded research at the annual conference of the Bioelectromagnetics Society in Victoria, British Columbia. The data concerned rates of DNA damage in animals exposed to RF. Motorola informed Phillips that he would have to change many of the statements for the presentation. Motorola “didn’t want, for instance, any mention of damage to DNA and radio frequency fields in the same abstract.”⁴¹ Ironically, Phillips’s data demonstrated a decrease in the rate of damage to DNA resulting from RF exposure. But as Adey (Phillips’s supervisor) later explained, Motorola was uncomfortable with any “evidence that mobile phones appeared to be having a biological effect.”⁴² Data that demonstrated any health effect at all was of concern to Motorola.

By 1997, Phillips had completed this research. He and his team had found that exposure to RF radiation had increased DNA damage in some instances and decreased it in others. He submitted these findings to Motorola. Motorola’s Swicord contacted Phillips to discuss the apparent inconsistency in the data. While these results may appear confusing or contradictory, Phillips explained that these results do make sense, because “if you produce a little bit of DNA damage, you are stimulating the repair mechanisms and you could actually see a net decrease because the repair will be done. However, if you over whelm the repair mechanism, then you could see an increase” in DNA damage.⁴³ This could be why exposure to a relatively weak EM field can yield such different outcomes compared to larger or more extended exposure.

Despite the explanation, Swicord pushed for Phillips to continue his study, offering him more money to produce more data, before publishing any conclusions. Phillips refused. “I said, no. The study’s done. I’ve been doing research for over 25 years. I know when a study is done. I’m going to go ahead and publish the work.”⁴⁴ Adey strongly encouraged Phillips to give Motorola what it wanted, indicating that not doing so would harm Phillips’s career. Again, Phillips resisted, and he published the findings in Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics in November 1998.

As Adey had warned, this proved to be the end of Phillips’s research funding from Motorola. Unfortunately, this coincided with the end of his funding from the Department of Energy, leaving Phillips with no sponsorship to run his laboratory. Phillips and his wife opted to leave research and moved to Colorado, where he is director of the Health Science Learning Center at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. Later, in 2009, Phillips, Lai, and Singh together published a joint paper reviewing effects of EMF on DNA in a special issue of the journal Pathophysiology.⁴⁵

After Motorola proved unsuccessful at suppressing publication of Phillips’s results, their funding shifted to other researchers who provided more comforting data. As a Motorola representative explained in a public statement issued on Colorado’s KGNU radio, “Motorola commissioned a separate laboratory to follow up on the results published by Dr. Phillips. That and other studies have failed to confirm his conclusions.”

One of the laboratories that received research sponsorship from Motorola was Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington (whose chief scientist of the Health Division, Dr. Thomas Tenforde, said in 1996 that “there are limits to what one can consider for the sake of safety without going back to the Dark Ages”⁴⁶). Battelle was unable to reproduce the results reported by Phillips or Lai and Singh.⁴⁷ Battelle has subsequently produced other studies supporting the claims of the wireless industry, including research challenging the validity of the link between EMF exposure and breast cancer.⁴⁸ Battelle also produced data disputing the results presented by my colleague Dr. Reba Goodman (discussed in chapter 1) on the effects of EMF exposure on gene expression.⁴⁹

When trying to understand seemingly contradictory results from competing scientific studies, it is important to know that one needn’t falsify data in order to misrepresent truth. In the case of Battelle’s claims against Dr. Goodman, for example, it turns out that Battelle’s “replication” of Goodman’s study, did not actually replicate her study. The specific types of cells researched in both studies (known as HL60 cells) were from two different suppliers and had very different growth characteristics. A seemingly inconsequential and easily overlooked detail, such as the source of the cells, accounts for the difference in outcomes between the studies. As a result, the data from both studies were correctly reported, but Dr. Goodman’s conclusions were based on functioning cells. Battelle’s conclusions were based on cells with greatly impaired function, and therefore not valid, although coincident with the preferences of their funding source.

As this example demonstrates, it is exceedingly easy to alter or tweak the design of a scientific study in seemingly minor ways that generate significant differences in outcomes. These experiments are quite complicated, and there are a tremendous number of variables involved. The choice of cells to study, the EM frequency, the duration of exposure, and the cumulative exposure from all sources are just a few of the factors. Then there are the procedural considerations, such as precision of scientific techniques and the creation of stable control groups.

And these are just the variables that go into the study. Interpreting the data presents an entirely different set of complexities, as we saw with Phillips’s attempt to explain DNA damage rates to Swicord. Recall that, at first glance, Phillips’s data appeared to demonstrate inconclusive results—some exposures increased DNA damage, some decreased DNA damage—even though there is a perfectly valid scientific explanation. Given such complexities, even minor alterations to assumptions or the execution of the study can lead to seeming contradictions.

Sometimes, these apparent contradictions result from seemingly trivial differences in approach. For example, in 1997, a group in Australia studying mice exposed to cell phone radiation reported a significant increase in the incidence of lymphomas—a type of cancer of the blood.⁵⁰ Then, a few years later, another group of investigators attempted to replicate the study. Their results indicated that “there was no significant difference in the incidence of lymphomas between exposed and sham-exposed groups at any of the exposure levels.”⁵¹

At first glance, it seems that these results are contradictory. But on closer inspection, we see that this is not actually the case. In the first study, the mice were not handled by the technicians; in the second study, which supposedly replicated the conditions of the first, the researchers did handle the mice. It has long been known that manual handling of mice is a form of stress that contributes to disease. Thus, in the second study both the exposed mice and the control mice were exposed to environmental stress, and as a result, both groups showed increased cancer formation. As a result of the increased cancer in the “control” group, the increase in the EMF group turned out to be below the level of significance, even though it was larger. The second study may have attempted to replicate the first, but in actuality it did not. The introduction of handling into the procedure might seem to be an inconsequential factor, but in this case it proved critical in determining the outcomes.

Other times, however, the contradictory results of such studies are not accidental, but intentional. As Phillips explains, “there are some scientists who know that you can design an experiment in this area to

produce any sort of effect you want . . . If I want to set up a study that’s guaranteed to show no effect, I can do it.” And this is what Motorola proceeded to do. Phillips continues:

Motorola has purchased results. I mean, I know laboratories that they’ve funded to the tune of many millions of dollars, and these labs have produced one study after another after another that say, Lai and Singh were wrong. Look, this other lab was wrong. Look, Phillips was wrong. Everybody is wrong, except these other people hired by Motorola.⁵²

Another of the Motorola-funded studies is the work of Drs. Joseph Roti Roti and Robert Malyapa of Washington University in St. Louis. In 1997, Roti Roti and Malyapa published their findings in Radiation Research from a study sponsored by Motorola. The results demonstrate that exposure to 835 MHz, 847 MHz, and 2,450 MHz MW radiation did not increase DNA strand breaks in cultured cells. (Separately, they claim to have been unsuccessful at identifying any changes within the brains of rats exposed to MW radiation.⁵³) Not surprisingly, Lai and Singh dispute these claims.

As you’ll recall, when Phillips wanted to replicate Lai’s work to see if he could reproduce their results, his first step was to send his researchers up to Lai’s laboratory in Washington to learn all of the details of the study. This is a desirable protocol for increasing the accuracy of attempts to replicate scientific experiments. Roti Roti did not do this (neither did Battelle). In his study, Roti Roti used a different variant of the comet assay technique (to measure the rate of DNA strand break) than that used by Lai and Singh. Both Lai and Singh explain that the technique used by Roti Roti cannot actually detect DNA damage from RF radiation. But in any case, one cannot cite the Roti Roti study as evidence to doubt Lai’s work—because the Roti Roti study did not actually reproduce the same conditions and techniques as Lai’s studies. By design, Roti Roti and Malyapa were testing something else. And, regardless of the intent of the researchers, they produced results that were in accord with their funder’s, Motorola’s, preferences.

The Roti Roti study, as well as the conflicting studies regarding lymphomas in mice exposed to cell phone radiation, speak to the importance of how a study is designed—choosing which type of experimental (laboratory) data to analyze and how to collect it. This is even more important in epidemiology studies. An example of how study design can influence the results of an epidemiology study can be found in a well-known and frequently cited 2006 study conducted in Denmark examining the health effects of cell phone use.

This study was massive in scope. Due to unique characteristics of the Danish health system and cell phone networks, the research encompassed the entire population, tracking cell phone usage of 420,095 subjects who began using the mobile devices between 1982 and 1995. For the subjects with the longest history of cell phone use, the study included 21 years of health history following their first exposures to cell phone radiation. This is an extremely long period for these types of studies, which is important given that it can take between 10 and 25 years for certain types of cancer to form.

We found no evidence for an association between tumor risk and cellular telephone use among either short-term or long-term users. Moreover, the [high degree of statistical accuracy of our data] provide evidence that any large association of risk of cancer and cellular telephone use can be excluded.⁵⁴

Given the scope of this study and the high degree of confidence with which the researchers report their unambiguous analysis, one would think that these results cast significant doubt on the claims of those who believe that RF/MW radiation is carcinogenic. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Carlo (who, as you’ll recall from earlier in this chapter, previously headed the CTIA’s WTR program and administered $25 million of industry funding for scientific studies into RF/MW radiation), this is not the case. “This study, funded by the telecommunications industry, was clearly created in order to produce a positive, low-risk finding.” As Carlo explains, this “Danish Cohort Study was epidemiologically designed to produce a pre-ordained positive outcome.”⁵⁵

A more detailed review of the findings from the Danish study reveals that the researchers defined a cell phone user as someone who used a cell phone at least one time per week. As Carlo explains, “finding a cell phone related cancer risk among this group would be akin to identifying excess lung cancer risk among people who smoked one cigarette a week—similar to finding a needle in a haystack.” Neither does the analysis account for actual time spent on the phone, which was significantly lower in the 1980s and 1990s than it is today, or even when the study was published in 2006. Across the period of the study, the 420,095 participants averaged 17 to 23 minutes per week of cell phone usage (by way of comparison, the average American today spends more time than that on cell phone calls each day). Even among vigorous opponents of cell phone use, few would be concerned about the minimal periods of use that appeared in the Danish study.

Not included in 420,095 subjects were over 200,000 cell phone subscribers who were dropped because they were corporate customers for whom individual information was not available. This not only represents a sizable loss of approximately 30% of potential study subjects, it also represents the loss of the group that is reputed to be among the heaviest users (particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, when cell phones were still exotic and very expensive devices). Even more significantly altering the nature of the results, these corporate users were categorized in the control group. “In other words, these heaviest users were treated as if they did not use cell phones. In his report on the May IARC meeting, Baan (a visiting scientist at the IARC) wrote that this ‘could have resulted in considerable misclassification in exposure assessment.’ That’s just a smart way of saying that the study has a good measure of bias.”⁵⁶

Carlo notes other flaws in his critique of the study, as does Dr. Lennart Hardell in his paper published in the Oxford Journal of Medicine.⁵⁷ For instance, users of cordless phones (exposed to RF/MW radiation from their phones), who did not use cell phones, were classified in this study as “nonusers.” Still, these fundamental flaws in the design of the study did not stop its wide reporting around the world. In the United States, CBS News covered the study with the headline “No Cancer Risk Seen with Cell Phones;”⁵⁸ USA Today concluded “A huge study from Denmark offers the latest reassurance that cellphones don’t trigger cancer;”⁵⁹ and the San Jose Mercury News led their coverage with “Will your cell phone cause cancer? No, according to a study by Danish researchers who tracked 420,000 cell phone users.”⁶⁰

Private industry, including firms like Motorola, and the trade organizations that represent them and others, like CTIA, have now funded a significant amount of research into the question of EMF. Indeed, private sources are now essentially the only type of funding for these types of studies in the United States (the situation is different in Europe). Dr. Gene Sobel, who concluded that there is “strong epidemiological evidence” for the link between EMF and Alzheimer’s, explains that “it’s next to impossible to get money to do these studies.”⁶¹ And, as we’ve seen, the private funding has tended to end up with those researchers who produce results favorable to the profits of the wireless industry. As Lai says, “the mechanism is funding . . . You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The pressure is very impressive.”⁶²

As a result, the science on the biological effects of exposure to EM radiation has been subject to significantfundingbias, or the tendency of outcomes from studies to align with the interests of those funding the studies. Numerous studies have been performed analyzing the impact of funding bias in multiple arenas of science and public health. Dr. Christina Turner reviewed 91 papers investigating tobacco and cognitive performance, concluding that “scientists acknowledging tobacco industry support reported typically that nicotine or smoking improved cognitive performance while researchers not reporting the financial support of the tobacco industry were more nearly split on their conclusions.”⁶³

On the controversy over the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic products, the Washington Post reported that “more than 90 percent of the 100-plus government-funded studies performed by independent scientists found health effects from low doses of BPA, while none of the fewer than two dozen chemical-industry-funded studies did.”⁶⁴ And a review of studies on drug trials in the pharmaceutical industry noted that “company-funded trials are four times more likely to find evidence in favor of the trial drug than studies funded by other sponsors . . . As a result, it is largely impossible to reliably assess the benefit and harm of medical drugs on the basis of published trials.”⁶⁵

This same funding-bias effect—aligning the interests of funding sources with the scientific outcomes produced by the sponsored researchers—has been repeatedly demonstrated in EMF science. Since 1990, Lai has been tracking the studies of the health effects of RF radiation on humans published around the world. He has hundreds of such studies in his database. Approximately 30% of the studies are funded by the wireless industry and 70% are funded by other sources that are presumably more independent. Of the industry-funded studies, 27% demonstrated a biological effect in humans resulting from RF exposure; whereas independently funded studies found such effects in 68% of the studies.⁶⁶ As Lai explains, “a lot of the studies that are done right now are done purely as PR tools for the industry.”⁶⁷

Similar results were presented by Dr. Anke Huss’s review of 59 studies related to the health effects of mobile phone radiation. Studies funded by industry were nine times more likely to demonstrate no health effect than those studies funded by public or charitable sources.⁶⁸ She found that 82% of research funded by public agencies (such as governments) and 71% of research funded jointly by industry and the public reported health effects resulting from RF exposure. Of the industry-funded studies, only 33% demonstrated such a link.⁶⁹ As Huss concluded of the science on bioeffects of EMF exposure, “studies funded exclusively by industry reported the largest number of outcomes, but were least likely to report a statistically significant result.”⁷⁰ Later, in 2010, Joel Moskowitz, from the University of California at Berkeley, reviewed 23 case-controlled studies examining the potential link between cell phone use and the risk for tumors, concluding that “among the 10 higher quality studies, we found a harmful association between phone use and tumor risk. The lower quality studies, which failed to meet scientific best practices, were primarily industry funded.”⁷¹

These reviews reveal the success of another of the wireless industry’s tactics in its scientific battle to defend its profits. After attacking and defunding scientists who publish results suggesting negative health effects from EMF, and shifting funding to other researchers who produce data more in line with maintaining profits, the industry then simply counts up the studies and presents the issue to the public as a simple scoreboard. As Joe Farren, CTIA’s director of public affairs, explains, “any official precautionary measures need to be based on the science. The majority of studies have shown there are no health effects.”⁷² In other words, we have more science on our side; therefore, cell phones are safe. This well-funded messaging has influenced the public discourse, as we see in an April 2012 article in UK’s Telegraph, which reassuringly explained:

Two years ago the INTERPHONE study [discussed in the next chapter] reported that the heaviest users could be at a 40 per cent increased risk of developing glioma, a common type of brain cancer. Most studies have found no such association though [emphasis added].⁷³

Some reviews of EMF health impacts by more explicit conflicts-of-interest can be harder to uncover. As we already saw with the example of Mays Swicord, who worked at both the US FDA and Motorola, there is a revolving door between the wireless industry and government regulatory agencies. (Swicord was at Motorola when he was elected president of the Bioelectromagnetics Society and advocated ending research on EMF as a potential health hazard.) Sometimes, however, the door is not so much revolving as nonexistent.

Dr. Anders Ahlbom is a professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He was, until recently, a highly influential and respected scientist whose opinions on the health risks of cell phones were widely sought after by organizations such as the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, and the European Union.

In 2011, Ahlbom was set to serve on an expert panel organized by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). That was until an investigation by Swedish journalist Mona Nilsson discovered that Ahlbom, along with his brother Gunnar, owned and served on the board of a lobbying firm servicing multiple firms in the telecommunications industry. Ahlbom’s clients included global telecommunications giant Ericsson (whose networks, at the time in 2011, handled 40% of all mobile phone calls made in the world)⁷⁴ and Swedish mobile phone operator TeliaSonera. Though the IARC requires invited experts like Ahlbom to disclose any such ties, Ahlbom did not.⁷⁵ The IARC effectively disinvited Ahlbom’s participation in the panel. Shortly thereafter, Ahlbom resigned his position with the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority just weeks after that group opened an investigation into Ahlbom’s potential conflicts of interest.

Precisely how such undisclosed conflicts of interest may have influenced policy is difficult to say. Though, as you’ve seen, Ahlbom was a respected expert in a position of significant authority when it came to establishing regulations for mobile devices around the world. From his own words we can glean what type of influence he has had. In a 2011 interview, Ahlbom was quoted (translated from the original Swedish) as saying “the probability of mobile phone radiation causing brain tumors is low . . . We are now pretty sure that there is no relation [between mobile phone use and brain tumors], at least after 10–12 years of use . . . Furthermore, there are areas that have not been studied, for example mobile phone use among children and youth. There is, however, no reason to believe that there are any risks there either.”⁷⁶ (This last comment is particularly egregious given the increased risks of EMF exposure for children, as described in chapter 13.)

Shortly after Ahlbom’s departure from the IARC (a division of WHO), WHO voted to classify MW radiation as a class 2B carcinogen— meaning that there is evidence, but not definitive proof, linking microwave radiation and cancer. Sadly, Ahlbom is just one example of the extreme conflicts of interest that can cloud and distort scientific research.

In 2002, the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority hired Drs. John Boice Jr. and Joseph McLaughlin, from the privately held firm International Epidemiology Institute (IEI), to review the published epidemiology on cell phone use and cancer. Boice and McLaughlin concluded that there was no consistent evidence for any increased risk of brain or salivary gland cancer resulting from cell phone use. These two men, however, failed to mention that they were the authors of some of the studies that they had reviewed—studies that demonstrate no correlation between mobile phone radiation and specific types of tumors. Boice and McLaughlin also failed to disclose that their employer, IEI, was involved on behalf of Motorola in a case involving cellular phones and brain tumors (Newman v. Motorola Inc., 2002).⁷⁷

The wireless industry not only has significant resources to fund its message, but as you’ve seen, the underlying science is extraordinarily complex and easy to obfuscate. This makes it very difficult for most people (including judges and juries) to interpret the information. The creation of misleading science to combat public perception through the media has been one front in industry’s war on science. Another key fight has been the battle to prevent any government regulation that might reduce profitability. On this front, as well, the wireless industry has been phenomenally successful.

As noted earlier in this chapter, the EPA’s research into the health effects of EMF and cell phone radiation was defunded in the 1990s. This is just one example of how the wireless industry has been able to influence the direction of federal government regulation. Between 1998 (when the wireless industry was first required to disclose its expenditures on lobbying efforts) through 2005,

eight of the country’s largest and most powerful media and telecommunications companies, their corporate parents, and three of their trade groups, have spent more than $400 million on political contributions and lobbying in Washington, according to a Common Cause analysis of federal records. Verizon Communications, SBC Communications Inc., AOL Time Warner, General Electric Co./NBC, News Corp./Fox, Viacom Inc./CBS, Comcast Corp., Walt Disney Co./ABC, and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the National Cable Telecommunications Association, and the United States Telecom Association together gave nearly $45 million in federal political donations since 1997. These eight companies and three trade associations also spent more than $358 million on lobbying in Washington, since 1998, when lobbying expenditures were first required to be disclosed.⁷⁸

One of the largest victories for the wireless industry in the fight against regulations was the 1996 Telecommunications Act (TCA). Though this occurred before lobbying expenditures were required to be disclosed, it is reported that the wireless industry spent $50 million influencing the outcome.⁷⁹ Included as section 704 was language specifically barring any restrictions on placement of cell towers due to health concerns.

As a result, many of the battles today over EMF regulation occur at the state and local level. In 2011, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) invited experts to comment on its Smart Meter Report regarding the increasingly common new generation of power meters that report power usage details back to the utility using wireless RF communication. (The Federal Communications Commission rates smart meters, like cell phones, as a safe technology.) The CCST report concluded that smart meters were not a health risk.

Interestingly, the final report (on which media outlets such as AP were basing their reporting) failed to include several comments, including many from experts that CCST had explicitly invited to comment. One omitted comment was the following one from Dr. De-Kun Li from the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute:

The bottom line is that the safety level for RF exposure related to non-thermal effect is unknown at present and whoever claims that their device is safe regarding non-thermal effect is either ignorant or misleading.⁸⁰

Another, more specific, comment that was not included is by Dr. Daniel Hirsch from the University of California at Santa Cruz:

[The report’s] estimates appear incorrect in a number of regards. When two of the most central errors are corrected . . . the cumulative whole body exposure from a Smart Meter at 3 feet appears to be approximately two orders of magnitude higher than that of a cell phone, rather than two orders of magnitude lower.⁸¹

It’s not clear why these comments, which CCST solicited, were not included in the report. Whatever the reason, the result was clear: invited comments from experts challenging the conclusions that smart meters are safe were omitted from a state-level report that influences regulation of the technology.

Another example from California is from 2010, when San Francisco became the first city in the nation to mandate that all stores include SAR (specific absorption rate) ratings alongside pricing for all cell phones. It seems a reasonable enough policy measure, providing consumers with information on EMF radiation levels generated by different devices. After all, cell phone makers have to disclose this anyway; this law just enforces a more prominent display of the same information. Unfortunately, Mayor Gavin Newsom explains, this is not what happened. Instead, “lobbyists from Washington made it clear that they would invoke ‘the nuclear option’ and come down ‘like a ton of bricks.’”⁸² As one example, Newsom explains that the Marriott hotel chain sent him a letter reading:

CTIA – The Wireless Association, which is scheduled to hold a major convention here in October 2010, has already contacted us about canceling their event if the legislation moves forward. They also have told us that they are in contact with Apple, Cisco, Oracle and others who are heavily involved in the industry, as you know, about not holding future events in your city for the same reason.⁸³

Immediately following passage of the bill, CTIA announced that it would pull its annual convention, with 68,000 attendees and an estimated $80 million in business, away from San Francisco. On the experience, Newsom reflects:

Since our bill is relatively benign, it begs the question, why did they work so hard and spend so much money to kill it? I’ve become more fearful, not less, because of their reaction. It’s like BP. Shouldn’t they be doing whatever it takes to protect their global shareholders?⁸⁴

While there are many dedicated scientists who are searching for the truth in regard to the dangers of EMF, they are an endangered species in the United States. The government no longer funds this research. The wireless industry funds studies that produce results in line with their interests, and attacks and defunds those scientists who produce results contrary to their interests. As Carlo explains, “the industry strategy has been to fund low-risk studies that will assure a positive result—and then use it to convince the news media and the public that it is proof that cell phones are safe.”⁸⁵ Jerry Phillips, who has seen this play out firsthand, reiterates that the wireless industry is “not interested in solving scientific puzzles, they’re interested in making money.”⁸⁶

And making money is definitely something at which the wireless industry has excelled. Estimates are that the wireless industry as a whole netted $19 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2012—reflecting a 20% increase from 2011.⁸⁷ The industry is so profitable that it can fund a significant amount of research—enough to obscure the value of those studies that do demonstrate health effects from cell phone use. Industry influence on EMF science comes at a time when there is no US-government research program at all on EMF safety—while use of cell phones, WiFi networks, and new wireless technologies like smart meters are all dramatically increasing.

While the bulk of examples in this chapter are of the corporate role in EMF science, much the same is found with military research sponsorship. Dr. Allan Frey reports that, following his groundbreaking results demonstrating blood-brain barrier damage from EMF exposure (discussed in chapter 6), his sponsor, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), instructed him not to publish further or he would lose his funding.⁸⁸ Similarly, Dr. Milton Zaret’s early pioneering work into microwave cataracts (also discussed in chapter 6) led to the cessation of all military funding for his research (which is why neither he nor anyone else has had the opportunity to attempt replication of the results).

As Chris Mooney writes in the Prospect, “the sabotage of science is now a routine part of American politics . . . It happens virtually every time the government even dreams of regulating a substance.”⁸⁹ Indeed, as we’ll see in the next chapter, the sabotage of EMF science (and the resulting delay of government regulatory action) is highly reminiscent of the history of another controversial product—cigarettes.

Chapter 8

THE BUSINESS OF EMF SCIENCE