Many attorneys don't leave home without it.
No, it's not their exclusive credit card. It's their portable cellular phone - their link to the world no matter where they are.
But the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection recently released a report that found millions of people may be at an increased risk for cancer because of electromagnetic radiation or electromagnetic fields, something that cellular phones produce.
Cellular phones first captured the hearts of the hurried in 1983. Since then, scores of lawsuits around the country have alleged causes of action ranging from strict liability to nuisance, personal injury to warranty violations, worker's compensation to negligent infliction of emotional distress for the fear of getting cancer. None has been successful.
EMF plaintiffs, though, are relentless in pursuing this elusive cause of action. Their latest allegation is negligent failure to warn, considered by some to be potentially more successful in light of what they consider is mounting evidence substantiating causation.
Among these types of cases are a half dozen civil suits filed in Cook County Circuit Court by trial attorney Bruce Good-hart. All deal with Chicago-area people who have benign or malignant brain tumors allegedly from the use of portable cellular phones.
A highly-publicized lawsuit filed by a Florida man initially linked cellular phones and brain tumors. David Reynard, a Florida widower, sued the portable phone manufacturer and carrier, alleging they were responsible for his wife Susan's fatal brain tumor. His appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live" triggered a cellular phone scare that temporarily jolted the industry. The judge, though, dismissed the suit, citing lack of scientific evidence.
Many household appliances -from microwave ovens to sewing machines, from video display terminals to vacuum cleaners - emit low-level radiation to those in contact with it, which some fear may have an incalculable cumulative effect. But high-voltage transmission lines and cellular phone antenna have been called "currents of death," a silent menace emitting high EMF levels that some fear cause cancer.
Some epidemiological evidence indicates that EMF bombard the surface of the cell, causing a breakdown of the DNA structure, which can cause diseases from exposure. But nothing conclusive has emerged. If these fields do indeed cause cancer, it is by a mechanism that has yet to be uncovered. And given the gestation period for most cancers, it may be some time before the true effects are known.
The cellular phone industry itself reportedly is spending $25 million in research on the impact of EMF. In this post-Daubert era, while plaintiffs may be forced to overcome a junk science objection, defendants may have to justify the incestuousness of the industry's funding its own research.
A bill was introduced in 1993 by Rep. Al Salvi, R-Wauconda, in the Illinois House of Representatives calling for the Illinois Commerce Commission to study the potential health effects of EMF. But H.B. 1084 died in the Health and Environment Committee.
Information needed to understand these physical properties and their effects would fill a college physics textbook. But, simply put, electricity passes through a wire, creating electric and magnetic fields that travel in waves. Cellular phones send their signals using very small bursts of high-frequency electromagnetic waves, or microwaves. The frequency of the power is measured in hertz. A megahertz is 1,000 times the power of a hertz.
The frequency of a specific EMF determines its position within the electromagnetic spectrum. Ionizing radiation such as X-rays are at the high end of the spectrum and have the ability to break molecular bonds, including those in human DNA. Radio frequencies and household current are further down the spectrum.
For example, a hair dryer, electric shaver, even a power line emits a maximum of 60 hertz. A cordless phone emits approximately 50 megahertz. But a portable cellular phone emits about 835 megahertz.
Because of society's widespread use of electricity, causation of injuries is nearly impossible to prove from power line exposure. But portable phones are considered an increased risk because of the proximity, strength, duration and amount of EMF exposure.
With 22 million cellular phones in the country and thousands more added each day, some predict EMF may be the mass toxic tort of the 21st century, similar to the asbestos and tobacco crises. A group of plaintiffs lawyers from around the country has galvanized to form Electromagnetic Radiation Case Evaluation Team, an organization which has built a computerized database of EMF experts and which screens potential personal injury cases.
Some insurers for utilities and electrical product manufacturers are bracing for a potential surge of litigation by denying coverage through a pollution exclusion. But some experts predict that state-of-the-art technology will soon produce devices that make EMF exposure obsolete.
In the meantime, Americans cannot become unwired over this potential environmental hazard until scientists conclusively identify and evaluate all of the potential risks, lest the wireless revolution literally goes to our heads.
