More Suits for Cells

Lawyers are nibbling at the $50-billion cellular industry with lawsuits designed to crack open the door leading to big-money, tobacco-industry-like litigation, say attorneys.

"This is a way to get it going," says Bob Sullivan, a plaintiff and personal-injury attorney who won a huge tobacco settlement on behalf of New York state. Sullivan was commenting on the two lawsuits filed Thursday in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York state courts, charging that cell-phone industry leaders sold phones knowing that they cause harm. The suits demand reimbursement for, or inclusion of, headsets to protect customers against radio frequency (RF) emissions from handsets.

Strong evidence linking cell-phone use to definite health effects has evaded lawyers to date. While some scientists have said there is a correlation between RF absorption into human tissues and health effects, there has been no proven causal relationship. Government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration have pointed to that lack of evidence of health effects. The Federal Communications Commission has a standard in place for wireless phones, called SAR, for specific absorption rate. SAR is a measurement of the amount of RF radiation absorbed by human tissue.

"In the United States, the and FDA and the FCC set the policy for the wireless phones, and our phones meet the FDA and FCC guidelines," says Andrea Linskey, a spokeswoman for Verizon.

Peter Angelos, a deep-pocketed tobacco-and-asbestos attorney and owner of the Baltimore Orioles, filed the lawsuit. The new suit, unlike Angelos' previous suit on behalf of a neurologist who claimed his brain tumor was caused by his frequent cell-phone use, does not claim direct injury from cell-phone use. Attorneys say personal-injury cases on behalf of clients who claim their injuries—like brain tumors—are linked to cell-phone use could take five years and $5 million for a law firm to pursue, without any guarantee of success.

Many service providers, including Verizon, Sprint PCS and Nextel, and manufacturers, like Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson, say they contribute to and support health research sponsored by the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. The CTIA, which represents the industry, has been criticized for not doing enough research into health effects of cell-phone use.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in The Net Economy.