Phone safety put to test

Lawsuits by American brain tumour victims are about to force cellphone companies to defend their safety record in a billion-dollar damages claim.

One of the companies about to be sued is global giant Vodafone, owner of New Zealand's second-biggest cellphone network.

The suits, to be launched by one of America's most successful lawyers, are the biggest legal assault on the mobile phone industry and will be the most extensive examination yet of claims that radiation from mobile phones causes cancer.

The Times in London reported yesterday that Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile phone company, faces up to 10 compensation claims, potentially for billions of dollars.

The cases will be filed by Peter Angelos, who recently helped to win $US4.2 billion ($9.4 billion) in damages from the tobacco industry in Maryland.

Mr Angelos, whose law firm earned nearly $US1 billion in fees from the tobacco settlement, is planning to launch two of the claims before March, and the remaining seven or eight within a year.

They will be launched in three US states, with each claim filed against a mobile handset manufacturer, a mobile phone network provider and a local land-line telephone company.

Vodafone is part-owner of Verizon, the largest mobile phone company in the US, which will be named in nearly all the legal actions.

Lawyers intend to claim compensation for the pain suffered by brain tumour patients, plus income lost as a result of the disease. Compensation will also be sought for the families of mobile phone users who have died from brain tumours, and punitive damages.

Phone companies have so far defended themselves successfully against claims that mobile phones can cause brain tumours. This has not prevented a succession of claims over the safety of the devices, mainly from former engineers who claim their jobs overexposed them to radiation from mobile phones.

Vodafone New Zealand had not heard about the legal action but the company's British office cited a study that gave the phones and cellphone towers a clean bill of health.