UW Scientist Henry Lai Makes
Waves in the Cell Phone Industry
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Cell Phone Radiation Protection
Mobile Phone Radiation Protection
UW scientist Dr. Henry Lai never set out to link cell phones
to cancer, but his work—and efforts to discredit him—suggest
that he was on to something. Ironically, with funding for
independent research virtually nonexistent, we may never
know for sure.
A greeting card on bioengineering professor Henry Lai's
office wall at the University of Washington contains this
quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Do not go where the
path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a
trail."
This philosophy could well sum up Lai’s work on the effects
of low-level radiation on DNA, as well as what he believes
should be the guiding principle of science: independent
investigation and research leading to discovery for the
public good. Yet the soft-spoken scientist’s steadfast
belief in that principle has placed his research at the
center of a persistent global controversy and created
powerful enemies that tried to get him fired and essentially
succeeded in drying up the source of funding for the type of
research he was doing.
Lai admits that he was naive. He came to the UW in 1972 and
earned a doctorate in psychology. Two decades later, as a
bioengineering researcher, he studied esoteric scientific
topics in relative obscurity. He and a fellow researcher,
Narendra “N.P.” Singh, were looking at the effects of
nonionizing microwave radiation—the same type of radiation
emitted by cell phones—on the DNA of rats. They used a level
of radiation considered safe by government standards and
found that the DNA in the brain cells of the rats was
damaged—or broken—by exposure to the radiation. Ironically,
cell phones weren’t even on Lai’s mind when he performed the
initial studies. Funded initially by the Office of Naval
Research, Lai was investigating how radar, which emits
radio-frequency radiation, affects the health of operators.
“We did not really pay attention to the importance of this
thing,” he recalls. But during his research, cell phone
giant Motorola Inc. indicated that someone had told the
company about Lai’s unpublished results. Motorola asked to
meet with him in his lab and at a meeting in Copenhagen.
After Lai and Singh’s research finding an effect on DNA was
published in 1995, Lai learned of a full-scale effort to
discredit his work. In an internal company memo leaked to
Microwave News, a publication that examines health and
environmental effects of electromagnetic radiation, Motorola
described its plan to “war-game” and undermine Lai’s
research. After initially accepting industry funding for
continued research from the Wireless Technology Research (WTR)
program (created to manage $25 million in research funds),
Lai and Singh wrote an open letter to Microwave News
questioning restrictions placed on their research by the
funders. After that, the head of WTR sent a memo asking
then-UW president Richard McCormick to fire Lai and Singh.
McCormick refused, but the dustup sent a clear message to
Lai and his colleagues.
“This shocked me,” Lai says, “the letter trying to discredit
me, the ‘war games’ memo. As a scientist doing research, I
was not expecting to be involved in a political situation.
It opened my eyes on how games are played in the world of
business.”
Thus was launched an epic battle over research and truth. If
Lai and Singh were correct about the potential impact on
brain cells from radio-frequency radiation, there could be
billions of dollars on the line for the cell phone industry
in potential liability, leading to significant design
changes and lost market expansion.
To the layperson, the science behind Lai’s work, which was
largely funded by the National Institutes of Health, and
industry-funded research to contradict it is mind-numbingly
complex. Virtually every assertion of risk has a
counterassertion of no risk. For every independent study
showing damage to DNA and memory, there is a study showing
the opposite.
Lai, 61, says this phenomenon could be a direct result of
the way science is now funded around the world. “[The U.S.
was 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,” Lai says. With government
funding all but nonexistent, the bulk of scientific research
is funded by private industry. “The mechanism is funding,”
Lai says. “You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The
pressure is very impressive.”
The massive Interphone study, coordinated by the
International Agency for Research on Cancer and released in
May 2010, exemplifies these challenges.
Purported to be the definitive word on cell phone radiation
and brain tumors, Interphone involved 13 countries (all
outside the U.S.), $25 million, and thousands of tumor
patients and controls. Conducted over 10 years, the widely
anticipated study was supposed to at last provide clarity on
the risks of cell phone use. Yet, once again, the science
was divided. The day after the study’s release, headlines
read, “No answer, just fuzz, from cell phone study,” and,
“One conclusion emerges from Interphone study: Controversy
will continue.”
Why, after so much money and time, were the data so mixed?
Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, says there were a
number of problems with Interphone. “When we started
interviewing the protagonists,” he says, “we realized there
was a lot of conflict going on. It was a bitter struggle. It
tells you the interpretation of the data is not clear cut in
any way.”
For the purposes of the Interphone study, a person who used
a cell phone 30 minutes a day for more than 10 years was
considered to be subjected to heavy exposure. Today, that
level of cell phone use (900 minutes a month) is average.
The people defined as the most heavily exposed in the
Interphone study now represent the average user.
To illustrate that point, Elisabeth Cardis, head of the
Interphone study, was quoted as saying, “In my personal
opinion, I think we have a number of elements that suggest a
possible increased risk among the heaviest users, and
because the heaviest users in our study are considered the
low users today, I think that’s something of concern. Until
stronger conclusions can be drawn one way or another, it may
be reasonable to reduce one’s exposure.”
Lai’s frustration with the increasing body of contradictory
research led him to do an analysis in 2006 of the available
studies on cell phone radiation between 1990 and 2006, and
where their funding came from. What he found was that 50
percent of the 326 studies showed a biological effect from
radio-frequency radiation and 50 percent did not. But when
he filtered the studies into two stacks—those funded by the
wireless industry and those funded independently—Lai
discovered industry-funded studies were 30 percent likely to
find an effect, as opposed to 70 percent of the independent
studies.
Lai says that, while his findings highlight the crucial role
industry funding plays in scientific research, the 50-50
split alone should be cause for concern. “Even if you accept
all the industry studies, you still end up with 50-50,” he
says. “How could 50 percent all be garbage? People always
start with the statement ‘Hundreds of studies have been done
on this topic, and no effect has been found,’ but this is a
very misleading statement. [The statements] come out from
the cell phone industry, and people just use it, like the
American Cancer Society. People haven’t even gone in to look
at the real studies and look at the effects that people have
reported. This really worries me, because people come out
and say things without the facts.”
Slesin agrees and says Lai’s work is important for the
research that does show effects from radiation. “[Lai] is
one of the most widely cited scientists in this field,”
Slesin says.
The American Cancer Society did not reply to requests for an
interview. Its official position on the risks of cell phone
use states: “Radio frequency (RF) waves given off by cell
phones don’t have enough energy to damage DNA directly.
Because of this, many scientists believe that cell phones
aren’t able to cause cancer. Most studies done in the lab
have supported this theory, finding that RF waves do not
cause DNA damage.”
CTIA-The Wireless Association, the cell phone industry trade
organization, also declined to comment for this story, but
its website states: “To date, global health organizations
believe that the available scientific evidence does not show
that any health problems are associated with using wireless
phones. Many studies of low-level RF exposure, such as that
which occurs with wireless devices, have not discovered any
negative biological effects.”
Dr. Beth Mueller, an epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center in Seattle, acknowledges that there
is not strong evidence linking cell phones to brain tumors.
But Mueller warns that the research is difficult and that
much more study is needed. “I think [cell phone radiation]
would be important to study. There are no studies I know of
on the possible impact on children and I think it’s
something that many people–including some people here at the
Hutch–want to see evaluated. I’m concerned because children
are using [cell phones] a lot. It’s something that should be
looked at, definitely.”
Katy Rock would agree. The Kirkland resident is an athletic
31-year-old who began having headaches in her late teens.
“Headaches became an unwelcome fact of life for me in
college,” she says, “at first always after running around on
the soccer or lacrosse field. So I assumed for years that it
was due to dehydration/nutrition problems or just being out
of shape. Eventually, they got worse. I started having them
with no explainable cause.”
It wasn’t until a she had a seizure in 2007 that Rock
discovered something was terribly wrong. The next day, she
underwent an emergency double craniotomy to remove a tumor
the size of a small lemon from her right frontal lobe and
two tumors the size of large grapes from her right temporal
lobe. A biopsy showed the cancerous tumors had been growing
for about 10 years. A year of chemotherapy followed.
Rock was an early adopter of cell phones. Given a phone as a
gift during college in 1997, she recalls using it about two
to three hours a week (about 630 minutes a month). Her usage
increased in later years with a job that required her to be
on call. She is right-handed, and her tumors were on the
right side.
Rock, who recently completed her first 5K run in support of
Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Brain Tumor Research
Guild, would not be surprised to find a link between cell
phones and brain tumors. “When I was in college, I used to
charge my cell phone at night, and the charger cord ran over
a leaf of my philodendron plant,” she says. “Over time, the
strip on the leaf where the cord touched turned brown. The
small amount of power running through the cord was enough to
kill some cells of the otherwise healthy plant.”
While Rock’s tale is merely metaphorical, its suggestive
import is not lost on Devra Davis, Ph.D., a huge admirer of
Lai’s work to raise awareness about the potential hazards of
cell phone radiation. Davis is a longtime toxicologist,
public health expert and founder of the Wyoming-based
Environmental Health Trust, a group that provides basic
research and training on environmental health hazards.
Davis’ most recent book, released last October, is
Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation. Davis
calls Lai a “hero” for his groundbreaking work. “[Lai] has
made a tremendous impact on the field in many aspects. Not
just on the field of DNA, but on the brain, on receptors. In
a fair and just world he would be a serious candidate for
the Nobel Prize, because he did foundational research on the
way the body responds to electromagnetic and radiofrequency
radiation and because he persisted in the face of many
challenges. He’s been outstanding and indomitable in the
face of opposition that would have overwhelmed most people.”
In her book, Davis describes a disconnect between the
general public’s largely unquestioning acceptance of cell
phone radiation and the large body of evidence suggesting
cause for concern. With Lai’s work as her foundation, Davis
demonstrates a pattern of the cell phone industry’s
scientific manipulation spanning decades. Davis is
particularly concerned because the rate of cell phone use by
children is skyrocketing—with three out of four 12-year-olds
and half of 10-years-olds in the U.S. now possessing a cell
phone. Even more troubling: Lennart Hardell, Ph.D., a
researcher in Sweden, found that those who began using cell
phones in their teens (such as Rock) had four to five times
the number of malignant tumors by their late 20s as those
who did not use cell hones as teenagers.
While Davis would argue that there is a proven, causal link
between cell phones and tumors, Lai does not. What he does
say is that there is enough reason for concern, and that a
“precautionary principle” should be embraced, as France has
done in warning against cell phone use by children, and as
San Francisco has done in mandating information on “specific
absorption rates” of radiation on cell phone packaging.
“European countries generally believe you need some kind of
precautionary approach,” says Lai, who does not own—or use—a
cell phone. “What else can we do? Obviously, we don’t know
the answer at all. But, then, there is a cause for concern.
We need to take some kind of precautionary action.” For now,
however, Lai will continue to do research on the drug
artemisinin—long used by Chinese herbalists—for applications
in cancer treatment, because there is no longer any
independent funding available for his research on the
effects of nonionizing radiation.
Meanwhile, Davis, who uses a cell phone but only with a
headset or as a speakerphone (she never keeps it close to
her body), hopes that by the time the public realizes the
importance of the path Lai has been on, it won’t be too
late. In Disconnect, she wonders how our grandchildren will
answer these questions: “Did we do the right thing and act
to protect them? Or did we harm them needlessly,
irresponsibly and permanently, blinded by the addictive
delights of our technological age?”
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