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."

Comments

Medical Radiation the New Demon

[eldavojohn]

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 ...

Re: Medical Radiation the New Demon

[MozeeToby]

I wonder how the medical imaging radiation an average person receives compares to the daily, hourly, sometime nigh-continuous exposure to the lower levels of radiation from a cell phone.

It doesn't. Trying to compare the two would be like trying to compare getting hit with a ping pong ball once a minute all day every day to getting shot with a 9mm pistol once a year. Look up the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation if this isn't making sense to you.

Re:Medical Radiation the New Demon

[theNAM666]

What are you complaining about? I went the dentist and then the urologist a few years ago, and then attempted to drive over the Williamsburg bridge. Six ATF guys pulled me over because their radiation detector went off... I don't want to remember the rest of it.

poor reception

[Trisha-Beth]

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

Re:poor reception

[JWSmythe]

    I went to Europe once (years ago), with my Nextel phone. I left it on quite a bit, so I could retrieve phone numbers, and call them from my local cell phone. The Nextel phone usually lasted for days if it was just turned on but I wasn't making calls. I had to charge it every night while I was there, because it was constantly seeking towers that didn't exist. After I got home, everything was back to normal. It could find towers, so it worked at lower power.

important psa

[girlintraining]

WARNING: The Sun is radioactive! Avoid using it to make phone calls. -- San Francisco.

Re: important psa

[Black Parrot]

WARNING: The Sun is radioactive! Avoid using it to make phone calls.

Or at least avoid holding it against your ear for prolonged periods.

Hey Gavin

[Low Ranked Craig]

Please educate yourself.

Re:Hey Gavin

[Low Ranked Craig]

You think he doesn't know?

Honestly? Yes. I think he isn't capable of understanding even the simple definitions and explanations in the attached. I've talked to council members on various city councils over the years - there are some astoundingly stupid people in local government that lack knowledge of basic economics, let alone basic science.

OMG!

[another joe]

What about second hand radiation? Maybe they should only call in their own homes!

Re:Threatened?

[gninnor]

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.

Re:iPhone

[Quiet_Desperation]

Put sharp 1 inch spikes on the phone. They will have the added benefit of preventing pigeons from landing on your phone.

Re:Threatened?

[dwillden]

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.

Move along,nothing to see here.

[bickerdyke]

Over here, the SAR has to be noted with the technical details for at least 10 years now. Not a cellphone less was sold.

Re:If there is anything i've learned this year...

[John Hasler]

> 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.

Banana Equivalent Dose of Cell Phone Radiation?

[daten]

I'm curious what the measure of cell phone radiation exposure is in bananas?

From wikipedia:

"""
Many foods are naturally radioactive, and bananas are particularly so, due to the radioactive potassium-40 they contain. The banana equivalent dose is the radiation exposure received by eating a single banana. Radiation leaks from nuclear plants are often measured in extraordinarily small units (the picocurie, a millionth of a millionth of a curie, is typical). By comparing the exposure from these events to a banana equivalent dose, a more realistic assessment of the actual risk can sometimes be obtained.

The average radiologic profile of bananas is 3520 picocuries per kg, or roughly 520 picocuries per 150g banana. The equivalent dose for 365 bananas (one per day for a year) is 3.6 millirems.
"""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose