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San Francisco Requires Cell Phone Radiation Warnings

Lord Ender writes "Poor phone reception may soon be a selling point in San Francisco. A city ordinance was just approved which requires those selling phones to indicate the 'specific absorption rate' (SAR) caused by the radio transmitters in the phones. Cell phone industry groups opposed the law. The FCC already requires phones sold in the US to have SAR levels below 1.6 W/kg, though adverse health effects from such levels of radio exposure have never been conclusively demonstrated."

7 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Medical Radiation the New Demon by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Recently it was reported widely that “airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and microwaves” ain't got nothin' on medical scanning radiation. Now people are asking for tracking systems and calling them a threat.

    I'm not really worried about cell phones as much as when I roll into my new dentist's, get 18+ x-rays of my entire mouth for their record. Find out I need two inlays on the lower left. Come back in two weeks and get two more xrays so they know where to drill. Come back in two weeks to get the inlays put in only to have them re x-ray the inlays after they were in to make sure they were in properly since they couldn't floss between them. What. the. hell? Can't you use regular light and your eyeballs to set those in there? I mean, I'm glad you did a good job, I just don't know what to do about this malignant jaw tumor now ...

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    My work here is dung.
  2. poor reception by Trisha-Beth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Poor reception means that the phone has to transmit at higher power to reach the cell base station.

  3. Re:Threatened? by gninnor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If everything is labeled "warning" including things that have shaky evidence to support it, eventually warnings become less useful and ignored.

    That being said, I really do not see what "information" is being provided.

  4. This is an implant ..... by wsanders · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... not just a crown. They drill a screw down into your jaw or skull bone, then mount a tooth on it.

    I would *definitely* not want to have problems with that, they could take as many X-rays as they want. At 0.005 millisieverts (see parent's link) that's still 1/20th the amount of a chest Xray.

    Now off to brush my teeth compulsively for the next hour.

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    Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
  5. Re:Threatened? by dwillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And semi-coincidently California now has so many warnings on so much stuff that the warnings do get ignored.

    CA should just save time and require everyone and everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) within the magical borders of CA to be labeled as being possibly cancerous.

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    I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
  6. Re:If there is anything i've learned this year... by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > its better safe than sorry.

    Right. What if living in houses causes cancer? It's never been proven that it doesn't. Better live outside.

    > Count me in with the "nut jobs"...

    Ok.

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    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  7. Re:If there is anything i've learned this year... by ImABanker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Studies have shown that nearly all of people who contracted cancer had lived in a house within the past 5 years. I'm surprised there isnt more of an uproar.