Answer: That's easy. They attack his credibility ..."

- From This document

[Home] | [Forum] | [Library] | [Links] | [Whats New]

Carlo Gets Attacked

Hi folks:

.....Question:  What does the telecom industry do about a (former?)
boss of their privately-funded EMF "research" organization when he
suddenly "gets religion" -- turns honest -- and becomes an independent,
objective scientist who sees that there may be problems with the health
effects of the cellular phone technology??????

.....Answer:  That's easy.  They attack his credibility.....

Read on........

(Notice that the "damning innuendo" against George Carlo is from unnamed
sources.  That's typical of planted stories like this.  The
"congressional" sources are probably staffers.  You probably cannot 
imagine how easy it is for an experienced entrenched "lobbyist" to plant a
story like this....  Shame on the Globe!!!)

Cheerio......

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at: 
EMF-L archives can be found at: (soon to be available)
...................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS.................

........DO YOU KNOW OF OTHER WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST???????............

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 18:47:12 -0700
From: Libby Kelley 
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Boston Globe Story (5/25/99) WTR backs down?

Boston Globe Newspaper, U.S.A 

           Airing of cell-phone data is assailed as premature 

 By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 05/25/99 

      Scientists 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.''



Libby Kelley
Executive Director
Ad Hoc Associaiton of Parties concerned About the FCC's Radiofrequency
Radiation Health and Safety Rules
aka Council on Wireless Technology Impacts

[Home] | [Forum] | [Library] | [Links] | [Whats New]

---