David Reynard appeared on the Larry King Live show in 1993 to discuss a lawsuit he had filed against NEC, a cell phone operator, and other companies, alleging that his late wife's brain tumor was caused in part by her use of a cell phone.

Reynard's lawsuit was dismissed in 1995, but Reynard's appearance on the show created nationwide concern. At the time, there were 15 million Americans using cell phones.

The day after the Larry King Live show, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) went on the offensive. Industry executives said that there were thousands of studies that proved that wireless phones were safe. In fact, whether such studies existed is disputed.

But CTIA understood the basic reality of the situation, and so it decided to spend $27 million over the next six years on health studies.

The association hired George Carlo, a public health scientist, who had a good track record as an industry researcher.

In 1994, Carlo began conducting studies to determine whether cell phones pose a health risk to consumers. Four times a year, Carlo would trudge over from his Dupont Circle office in Washington, D.C. to the offices of CTIA to debrief the CEOs of the major telephone and electronics firms that make up the $40 billion a year mobile phone industry.

In 1995, Carlo found that digital phones were interfering with cardiac pacemakers.

"We then conducted about $2.5 million worth of research to quantify that problem, and as a result, I had somewhat of a falling out with the industry," Carlo says.

"They didn't like that finding." The industry cut off Carlo's funding.

But through a process of negotiation, Carlo got back in. The industry would again fund his studies, but only if he agreed not to research the questions of defibrillators and digital phones, and of cell phones and automobile safety, and he could no longer work on a very extensive program to standardize the methodology for testing whether or not cell phones met industry-defined standards.

He subsequently found that the risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor of the auditory nerve that is well in range of the radiation coming from a phone's antennae, was 50 percent higher in people who reported using cell phones for six years or more. Moreover, that relationship between the amount of cell phone use and this tumor appeared to follow a dose-response curve.

He found that the risk of rare neuro epithelial tumors on the outside of the brain was more than doubled, a statistically significant increase, in cell phone users as compared to people who did not use cell phones.

He found that there appeared to be some correlation between brain tumors occurring on the right side of the head and use of the phone on the right side of the head.

And he found that laboratory studies looking at the ability of radiation from a phone's antenna to cause functional genetic damage were definitely positive, and were following a dose-response curve.

Carlo says that he has repeatedly recommended that the industry take a pro-active, public health approach on the issue, and inform consumers of his findings. He says that he uses a cell phone, but only with a headset.

"Alarmingly, 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," Carlo wrote in a letter to top industry CEOs in October. "The most important measures of consumer protection are missing: complete and honest factual information to allow informed judgment by consumers about assumption of risk, the direct tracking and monitoring of what happens to consumers who use wireless phones, and the monitoring of changes in the technology that could impact health."

In a letter responding to Carlo, CTIA President Thomas Wheeler wrote, "You failed to mention that you stated to the CTIA Board that while [your study] results were noteworthy, they did not pose a public health threat."

"We are certain that you have never provided CTIA with the studies" definitively showing harmful health effects, Wheeler wrote. "We don't believe that you withheld them on purpose, just that the research reports are not yet completed."

"From the outset of the Wireless Technology Research program [Carlo's work] the modus operandi was to review the findings with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and be guided accordingly," Wheeler added.

But Carlo is troubled by a recent agreement between Elizabeth Jacobson, the person in charge of cell phone regulation at the Food and Drug Administration, and Wheeler. Under the agreement, CTIA will fund the FDA to do additional safety studies.

Carlo says that in 1994, Jacobson refused such a cooperative research agreement, because she didn't think she could both collaborate with the industry and regulate it. (Jacobson, through a spokesperson, denies taking this position.)

"This arrangement is wrong, plain and simple," Carlo says. "The FDA's behavior is appalling to me. The FDA seems to be more than willing to jump in bed with the industry. It is a blatantly arrogant attempt to join in a relationship that is a conflict of interest on its face. The reason it has not been criticized is that people don't know about it. Consumers are being left out to dry."

The FDA's Russell Owen says that the FDA has not regulated cell phones because "we don't have sufficient evidence to determine that there might be adverse health effects from cell phones."

� Russell Mokhiber