Cellphone radiation posting law passed in U.S.
San Francisco city council passed a requirement Tuesday that would force retailers to post radiation levels of for-sale cellphones, the first such requirement in the United States.
San Francisco's board of supervisors — the elected arm of that city's government — approved a municipal change that would require stores to post prominently the level of radioactive particles emitted by portable devices sold at their locations.
The requirement — which is expected to be signed into law by Mayor Gavin Newsom within the next 10 days — arose from concerns about the health effects of extensive cellphone use among consumers.
Law will 'mislead': U.S. cell industry
The mayor's office called the new law a win for the consumers' right to know.
It will mean that the information is out there, said Tony Winnicker, a spokesman for Newsom, "if you’re willing to look hard enough."
The new municipal ordinance will make retailers list a device's specific absorption rate (SAR), or the rate at which these potentially harmful rays are taken in by skin cells.
That information will just confuse customers, the U.S. cell industry argued.
"(T)he ordinance will potentially mislead consumers with point of sale requirements suggesting that some phones are 'safer' than others," said John Walls, vice-president of public affairs for the CTIA, the association that represents the wireless phones sector in the United States.
Walls noted that all devices on the market already must comply with Federal Communications Commission safety standards.
Researchers call for more studies
Many groups have maintained that extensive use of cellphones will increase the risk to a person's health.
But at least one recent report examining the link between cellphone radiation and cancer failed to find hard evidence that extensive portable calling will boost a caller's risk of life-threatening diseases.
In May, an extensive United Nations study of cell usage in 13 countries did not uncover a definitive link between portable device radiation and various types of cancer.
"An increased risk of brain cancer is not established from the data. However … further investigation of mobile phone use and brain cancer risk is merited," said Christopher Wild, director of the study.
Children and cell towers
Another study, this one British, was published in June. It suggested that British children whose mothers lived close to cellphone towers while pregnant did not face a higher risk of cancer than the offspring of expectant mothers who did not reside near such installations.
The researchers examined the health of boys and girls aged four between 1999 and 2001.
The report was jointly funded by the British government and the British mobile telecommunications industry.