Brain tumors and cell phones Kennedy and the grassy Knoll?
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Airing of cell-phone data is assailed as
premature
By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 05/25/99
cientists studying links between cellular telephone use and cancer are
furious that preliminary data were leaked from their research in a way
that, they say, falsely suggested that the phones may be linked to brain
tumors.
In fact, investigators said yesterday, the data show no clear link. Several
people close to the situation said the consultant who released the information
may have been trying to stir up fears to get more research funds for himself
or for associates.
The consultant, a George Washington University faculty member, George
Carlo, denied looking for more business.
For years, studies have overwhelmingly disputed a cancer risk from the
low-level electromagnetic energy of cell phones. But with 70 million to 100
million Americans now using cell phones, any hint of danger attracts intense
political and scientific interest.
A story distributed Friday by The Washington Post, and which was
published in Saturday's Globe under the headline ''Study suggests cell
phones tied to cancer,'' cited ''possible connections'' between cell-phone use
and cancer. It used a statistical study examining rates of a rare brain cancer
called neurocytoma, as well as a laboratory study.
The work was overseen by a Washington consulting firm, Wireless
Technology Research LLC, under a six-year, $27 million contract expiring
next month that was funded by a blind trust established by cellular
companies. The trust was aimed at enhancing the studies' credibility.
The consulting firm, chaired by Carlo, a lawyer and public-health specialist
on the George Washington University faculty, hired scientists led by Dr.
Joshua Muscat, a widely published New York epidemiologist, for a
''case-control'' study.
Over five years, Muscat's group has compared 450 people with brain
cancer to a control group of 450 others. Carlo said in an interview yesterday
that the findings suggest a nearly tripled risk of a brain cancer called
neurocytoma among cell-phone users.
''The whole thing is a gray area,'' Carlo said. ''No one - myself included -
believes that these findings rise to the level of a public health threat, but
clearly there is a need for timely, follow-on research.''
But one of the investigators working with Muscat, Dr. Michael Huncharek,
director of Meta-Analysis Research Group in Columbia, S.C. and a
radiology professor at the University of South Carolina Medical Center,
said: ''There is no more study needed on this issue. There really was no
association found between cell phone use and the development of primary
brain tumors.''
Huncharek, a Boston University Medical School graduate who trained at
Massachusetts General Hospital, said: ''This is grossly irresponsible to
release something like this.''
Muscat, who is with the American Health Foundation in New York, said,
''The results that are quoted by other sources really don't have much
credence.''
''It's just not appropriate'' for any data to be publicized yet, Muscat said,
especially not an ''isolated finding that's taken out of context.'' And he voiced
fear that the early publicity would ruin chances of publication in a
peer-reviewed medical journal for the study, which is still a month from
completion.
The indication of increased neurocytoma from cell-phone usage,
investigators said, hinges on a single New York University neuropathologist
whose diagnoses many other physicians dispute.
Others theorize that those cases were a more common brain cancer called
astrocytoma, Huncharek said. Muscat said only that ''there's ambiguity'' on
the diagnoses.
If those cases are in fact the more common astrocytoma, the data would
show no statistically significant increased risk of brain tumors among
cell-phone users, said Huncharek, who voiced outrage that Carlo had
released the data.
Carlo himself acknowledged that despite showing an apparently elevated
risk of neurocytoma among cell-phone users, Muscat's results also show the
opposite of a ''dose-response'' effect: Rates of brain cancer were lower
among people who spent more time on a cell phone, rather than higher.
However, Carlo opposed reconsidering or reclassifying the New York
cases as astrocytoma, saying that would be ''retrofitting the data and would
invalidate the study.''
Three Capitol Hill sources involved in the issue, who asked not to be named,
said there might be other motivations. One of them said: ''Part of what might
be going on here is Carlo looking for an extension on his research contract.''
But Carlo said that when his term as chairman expires next month, ''I'm not
going to re-up. The future'' of Wireless Technology Research ''is unclear ...
When we complete our job, that's going to be it.''
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association officials would not
comment directly, but in veiled criticism of Carlo's early release of data, the
association president, Thomas Wheeler, said the association ''welcomes
independent, peer-reviewed scientific inquiry, and will continue to support
independent, peer-reviewed work where appropriate and necessary.''
This story ran on page A3 of the Boston Globe on 05/25/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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