#921: Another Larry King show on mobile phones
From Cindy Sage:
Tonight, the Larry King Live show carried another half an hour panel discussion on the cell phone/brain tumor question. The speakers were:
Devra Davis of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Keith Black, MD of Cedars Sinai Hospital, Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Paul Song, a radiation oncologist in Los Angeles and Ted Schwartz, a brain surgeon at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City.
This is a watershed moment. Devra Davis was brilliant and had the most in-depth information and focus. The panel endorsed precaution by reducing exposure to cell phones, use of wired earpieces for all calls, and very limited (if any) use of cell phones by young children. There was good support for Ron Herberman’s warning on cell phones to the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center employees and staff.
Sanjay Gupta held up Om Gandhi’s color images of cell phone RF in the brain of a 5-year old, 10-year old and adult.
He finally jumped the fence on this issue, as apparently did the American Cancer Society.
Even the American Cancer Society’s Otis Brawley agreed that precaution is warranted since we don’t know what may happen 20-30 years out. For the first time in the US, the experts sounded like they believe the early evidence warrants taking some precautionary public health actions now, and warning the public about what we do know (except Ted Schwartz, who says we should wait).
Brawley, the American Cancer Society rep…. responded to an email asking “what should the US public health response be if the Interphone Study shows a doubling of risk, as some earlier studies have done?” by saying:
“I think we’re going to have to look at the Interphone Study very carefully. It’s actually been completed for about two and a half years and the people who actually ran the study have yet to publish it. There’s a lot of discussions going on amongst those scientists as to exactly what the data show. And it would be really nice if it were published, I must tell you.”
Larry King pointed out that he’d invited many of the cell phone manufacturers, but none would attend.
CTIA filed a written statement disavowing any risks, citing WHO, the FDA and the American Cancer Society.
The link to the transcript of the show is: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/29/lkl.01.html
Cindy Sage
Co-Editor
BioInitiative Report
CHE-EMF Working Group