Stan Beer
Monday, 31 March 2008 16:40
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
I can remember the first story I wrote about possible links between cell phones and brain cancer back the late 1990s for the Australian Financial Review. In the course of the story, I interviewed a number of senior medical specialists at leading hospitals, many of whom believed that the cell phone brain cancer issue was a ticking time bomb, much like cigarettes with lung cancer had been decades earlier. The response from the industry to the story was swift and interesting.
The very next day, I got a phone call from the PR
firm representing AMTA (Australian Mobile Telecommunications
Association) the peak industry body in Australia. Key AMTA
representatives wanted to explain to me over lunch why the cell phone
cancer issue was nonsense. Always willing to listen to all sides of a
contentious issue, I agreed.
I honestly don’t remember too much about what was exactly said at that
lunch but I do remember one incident. One of the AMTA representatives,
a senior telecommunications expert, whipped an old mobile phone out of
his pocket and opened the battery compartment. To my surprise instead
the usual square Nickel Cadmium battery pack, the phone was powered by
three rechargeable AA batteries.
“Do you honestly think this could generate enough power to cause brain
cancer?” he asked – or words to that effect. It was pretty naked
attempt by AMTA to make nonsense of the whole issue but for me it had
the opposite effect. I was disturbed that someone in a high
technical position in the mobile phone industry would be so blatantly
dismissive of a serious issue using such an obviously fallacious
example.
Ever since those days, I’ve followed the mobile phone cancer issue with
interest, mindful and taking note of the associated events, studies
and media reports.
I watched as Dr George Carlo, the one-time chairman of the global
mobile phone industry’s sponsored $25 million Wireless Technology
Research (WTR) project, had a falling-out with his sponsors in 1999
after producing findings of a study which he claims to this day support
links between brain cancer and cell phone use.
