Dr George Carlo Cell Phone Wireless Industry Video Audio History

In 1993 a Florida man named David Reynard appeared on the TV program, Larry King Live, declaring that he was suing NEC America Corp.. When he filed his suit in May 1993, he contended that his pregnant wife's fatal brain tumor was caused by radiation from her cell phone. Deborah Reynard's cancer was unusual, with the tumor growing from the outside to the inside of her head, at the precise location of her mobile phone antenna. ABC's 20/20 followed shortly with anotherreport. Experts and scientists were quoted supporting both sides of the issue, and many distortions and misinterpretations appeared in the media.

Following that case, and the negative effect on cell phone sales, the industry pledged to fund research into the health effects of cell phones. But it struck a deal with the US government's regulating bodies that stipulated the industry would only research the damaging effects if they could remain unregulated until all the research was done. Under the terms of the deal, the government agreed to let the telecommunications industry regulate itself, and the cell phone manufacturers pledged to spend $28.5 to carry out the research. It seemed like a good compromise at the time.

That's when they set up a committee, set aside the $28.5 million dollars for research, and hired Dr. George Carlo, a noted scientist, to head a five-year research program to determine whether cell phones could affect health.

But, some five years later, in late 1998, when Dr. Carlo turned over the preliminary results of the research to the telecommunications industry (which had paid for the studies) and to the committee members (who were very much in awe of the industry's power and success) something strange happened.

During the five years in which the research was conducted- significantly - cell phone use had increased from a few million to billions of users worldwide, and billions of dollars were being made by the telecommunications industry, now the new darling of the U.S. economy.

Mysteriously, the results of that scientific research never quite reached the light of public scrutiny. They were either blatantly discarded, buried in obscurity, or - worst of all - distorted and used to assure the public that the dangers of cell phone use were negligible or non-existent.

Even before Dr. Carlo's group's research was published, the cell phone industry began to file for patents (under various aliases) on devices to make cell phones safer. In a classic Catch-22 situation, the industry sought safer technologies, and at the same time hypocritically advertised that cell phones were completely safe. To this day, cell phone manufacturers print cell phone users' manuals stating that cell phones are not harmful.

The cellular phone industry was born in the early 1980s, when communications technology that had been developed for the Department of Defense was put into commerce by companies focusing on profits. This group, with big ideas but limited resources, pressured government regulatory agencies-particularly the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-to allow cell phones to be sold without pre-market testing. The rationale, known as the "low power exclusion," distinguished cell phones from dangerous microwave ovens based on the amount of power used to push the microwaves. At that time, the only health effect seen from microwaves involved high power strong enough to heat human tissue. The pressure worked, and cell phones were exempted from any type of regulatory oversight, an exemption that continues today. An eager public grabbed up the cell phones, but according to Dr. George Carlo, "Those phones were slowly prompting a host of health problems."

Today there are more than two billion cell phone users being exposed every day to the dangers of electromagnetic radiation (EMR)-dangers government regulators and the cell phone industry refuse to admit exist. Included are: genetic damage, brain dysfunction, brain tumors, and other conditions such as sleep disorders and headaches.1-9 The amount of time spent on the phone is irrelevant, according to Dr. Carlo, as the danger mechanism is triggered within seconds. Researchers say if there is a safe level of exposure to EMR, it's so low that we can't detect it.

The cell phone industry is fully aware of the dangers. In fact, enough scientific evidence exists that some companies' service contracts prohibit suing the cell phone manufacturer or service provider, or joining a class action lawsuit. Still, the public is largely ignorant of the dangers, while the media regularly trumpets new studies showing cell phones are completely safe to use. Yet, Dr. Carlo points out, "None of those studies can prove safety, no matter how well they're conducted or who's conducting them." What's going on here? While the answer in itself is simplistic, how we got to this point is complex.

In December, 2006, an epidemiological study on cell phone dangers published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute sent the media into a frenzy.10 Newspaper headlines blared: "Danish Study Shows Cell Phone Use is Safe," while TV newscasters proclaimed, "Go ahead and talk all you want-it's safe!" The news seemed to be a holiday gift for cell phone users. But unfortunately, it's a flawed study, funded by the cell phone industry and designed to bring a positive result. The industry's public relations machine is working in overdrive to assure that the study get top-billing in the media worldwide.

According to Dr. George Carlo, the study, by its design, could not identify even a very large risk. Therefore, any claim that it proves there's no risk from cell phones is a blatant misrepresentation of the data that will give consumers a very dangerous false sense of security.

"Epidemiological studies are targets for fixing the outcome because they're observational in nature instead of experimental," Dr. Carlo explains. "It's possible to design studies with pre-determined outcomes that still fall within the range of acceptable science. Thus, even highly flawed epidemiological studies can be published in peer-reviewed journals because they're judged against a pragmatic set of standards that assume the highest integrity among the investigators."

Key problems with the study are:

1. There are few discernable differences between who was defined as cell phone users and who wasn't. Thus, people defined as exposed to radiation were pretty much the same as those defined as not exposed to radiation. With few differences, it's nearly impossible to find a risk.
2. Users were defined as anyone who made at least one phone call per week for six months between 1982 and 1995. So any person who made 26 calls was a cell phone user and therefore considered exposed to radiation. Those with less than 26 calls were non-users. In reality, the radiation exposure between users and non-users defined in this manner is not discernable.
3. The "exposed" people used ancient cell phone technology bearing little resemblance to cell phones used today. The results, even if reliable, have no relevance to the 2 billion cell phone users today.
4. From 1982 to 1995, cell phone minutes cost much more than today and people used their phones much less. Thus there was very little radiation exposure.
5. During the study's time frame, people likely to use their cell phones the most were commercial subscribers. Yet this highest exposed group, in whom risk would most easily be identified, was specifically excluded from the study.
6. There were no biological hypotheses tested in the study. It was therefore only a numbers game. Ignored were mechanisms of disease found in other studies of cell phone radiation effects, including genetic damage, blood-brain barrier leakage, and disrupted intercellular communication. The study did not discuss any research supporting the notion that cell phones could cause problems in users.
7. The study itself was inconsistent with cancer statistics published worldwide addressing the Danish population. This study showed a low risk of cancer overall, when in fact Denmark has some of the highest cancer rates in the world. This inconsistency suggested that something in the data does not add up.

The cell phone industry constantly guards its financial interests, but unfortunately, an unwitting public can be harmed in the process, says Dr. Carlo. "Industry-funded studies in many cases now produce industry-desired outcomes. By tampering with the integrity of scientists, scientific systems and public information steps over the lines of propriety that are appropriate for protecting business interests-especially when the casualty of the interference is public health and safety."

To learn more about the dangers of cell phones and to read Dr. George Carlo's full formal analysis of the Danish cell phone study, visit the Safe Wireless Initiative website at http://www.safewireless.org/GetInformed/DrCarlosBlog/tabid/73/Default.aspx

A cellular phone is basically a radio that sends signals on waves to a base station. The carrier signal generates two types of radiation fields: a near-field plume and a far-field plume. Living organisms, too, generate electromagnetic fields at the cellular, tissue, organ, and organism level; this is called the biofield. Both the near-field and far-field plumes from cell phones and in the environment can wreak havoc with the human biofield, and when the biofield is compromised in any way, says Dr. Carlo, so is metabolism and physiology.

"The near field plume is the one we're most concerned with. This plume that's generated within five or six inches of the center of a cell phone's antenna is determined by the amount of power necessary to carry the signal to the base station," he explains. "The more power there is, the farther the plume radiates the dangerous information-carrying radio waves."

A carrier wave oscillates at 1900 megahertz (MHz) in most phones, which is mostly invisible to our biological tissue and doesn't do damage. The information-carrying secondary wave necessary to interpret voice or data is the problem, says Dr. Carlo. That wave cycles in a hertz (Hz) range familiar to the body. Your heart, for example, beats at two cycles per second, or two Hz. Our bodies recognize the information-carrying wave as an "invader," setting in place protective biochemical reactions that alter physiology and cause biological problems that include intracellular free-radical buildup, leakage in the blood-brain barrier, genetic damage, disruption of intercellular communication, and an increase in the risk of tumors. The health dangers of recognizing the signal, therefore, aren't from direct damage, but rather are due to the biochemical responses in the cell.

Here's what happens:

• Cellular energy is now used for protection rather than metabolism. Cell membranes harden, keeping nutrients out and waste products in.
• Waste accumulating inside the cells creates a higher concentration of free radicals, leading to both disruption of DNA repair (micronuclei) and cellular dysfunction.
• Unwanted cell death occurs, releasing the micronuclei from the disrupted DNA repair into the fluid between cells (interstitial fluid), where they are free to replicate and proliferate. This, says Dr. Carlo, is the most likely mechanism that contributes to cancer.
• Damage occurs to proteins on the cell membrane, resulting in disruption of intercellular communication. When cells can't communicate with each other, the result is impaired tissue, organ, and organism function. In the blood-brain barrier, for example, cells can't keep dangerous chemicals from reaching the brain tissue, which results in damage.

With the background levels of information-carrying radio waves dramatically increasing because of the widespread use of cell phones,Wi-Fi, and other wireless communication, the effects from the near and far-fields are very similar. Overall, says Dr. Carlo, almost all of the acute and chronic symptoms seen in electrosensitive patients can be explained in some part by disrupted intercellular communication. These symptoms of electrosensitivity include inability to sleep, general malaise, and headaches. Could this explain the increase in recent years of conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and anxiety disorder?

"One thing all these conditions have in common is a disruption, to varying degrees, of intercellular communication. When we were growing up, TV antennas were on top of our houses and such waves were up in the sky. Cell phones and Wi-Fi have brought those things down to the street, integrated them into the environment, and that's absolutely new. The recognition mechanism, where protein vibration sensors on the cell membrane pick up a signal and interpret it as an invader, only works because the body recognizes something it's never seen before."

As to increases in brain tumors tied to cell phone use, it's too early to tell due to a lack of hard data, says Dr. Carlo. "We're never going to see that in time to have it matter. Here in the US, we're six years behind in getting the brain tumor database completed, and currently the best data are from 1999. By the time you see any data showing an increase, the ticking time bomb is set."

Epidemic curve projections, however, indicate that in 2006, we can expect to see 40,000 to 50,000 cases of brain and eye cancer. This is based on published peer-reviewed studies that allow calculation of risk and construction of epidemic curves. By 2010, says Dr. Carlo, expect that number to be between 400,000 and 500,000 new cases worldwide.

"This means we're on the beginning curve of an epidemic, with epidemic defined as a change in the occurrence of a disease that is so dramatic in its increase that it portends serious public health consequences," says Dr. Carlo. "This is what's not being told to the public. One of the things that I suggest to people who use a cell phone is to use an air tube headset. If you use a wired headset, the current moving through the wire of the headset attracts ambient informational carrying radio waves and thereby increases your exposure.