D.C. Court Dismisses Expert Witnesses in Cellphone RF Health Case
CTIA hailed a decision by Judge Alfred Irving of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, who struck expert witnesses from a long-standing RF lawsuit filed against Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm and other companies. Irving handed down an 83-page decision Tuesday that considered each of the experts and why he was dismissing their testimony.
The case before Irving consolidates numerous cases brought by people suffering from a brain tumor or an estate suing on behalf of someone who died of brain cancer. The court held an evidentiary hearing in September.
“For years, the consensus of the international scientific community has been that wireless devices and networks do not cause adverse health effects,” CTIA said in a Wednesday statement. “The D.C. court’s decision carefully explains that claims to the contrary have no credible scientific basis,” the group said: “After decades of studies and more than twenty years of litigation, the court excluded each of the Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses claiming cell phones cause adverse health effects. This decision is consistent with the views of health experts around the world, including the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.” RF safety groups and lawyers for plaintiffs didn’t comment.
“The Court considered the record, the laws of this jurisdiction, the testimonial and documentary evidence presented during the evidentiary hearing, including arguments of counsel, and the post evidentiary briefs,” Irving wrote: “The Court agrees with Defendants and will exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses.” Trial judges “are the gatekeepers of expert testimony,” he said.
Among the witnesses Irving rejected was Michael Kundi, retired professor of epidemiology and occupational health at the Medical University of Vienna. Kundi “offers an opinion that, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, ‘there is a relationship between [mobile phone] use and glioma as well as acoustic neuroma and this relationship is one that must be causally interpreted given the evidence available so far,” Irving said: “Kundi provides insufficient facts or data to support his opinion that a cause-effect relationship exists between mobile phone use and acoustic neuromas and gliomas.”
Irving similarly rejected testimony by Igor Belyaev, the head research scientist and the head of the Radiobiological Laboratory for the Cancer Research Institute, Biomedical Research Center at the Slovak Academy of Science. Though “Belyaev considers himself an expert in radiofrequency radiation and the possible causation of acoustic neuroma, his testimony and expert report indicate otherwise, as he fails to provide a causation opinion as to acoustic neuroma and glioma to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty,” Irving said.
The court also rejected testimony by Wilhelm Mosgoeller, a histologist and cell biologist. “Dr. Mosgoeller’s testimony is not based on sufficient facts and data, the product of reliable principles and methods, and he has not reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of this case,” Irving found.