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Don't Keep Cellphones Next To Your Body, California Health Department Warns (techcrunch.com)
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a warning against the hazards of cellphone radiation this week. They are asking people to decrease their use of these devices and suggest keeping your distance when possible. TechCrunch reports: The warning comes after findings were offered up this week from a 2009 department document, which was published after an order from the Sacramento Superior Court. A year ago, UC Berkeley professor Joel Moskowitz initiated a lawsuit to get the department to release the findings after he started looking into whether mobile phone use increased the risk of tumors. A draft of the document was released in March, but the final release is more extensive.
According to the Federal Communication Commission's website, there is no national standard developed for safety limits. However, the agency requires cell phone manufacturers to ensure all phones comply with "objective limits for safe exposure." The CDPH recommends not keeping your phone in your pocket, not putting it up to your ear for a prolonged amount of time, keeping use low if there are two bars or less, not sleeping near it at night and to be aware that if you are in a fast-moving car, bus or train, your phone will emit more RF energy to maintain the connection.
According to the Federal Communication Commission's website, there is no national standard developed for safety limits. However, the agency requires cell phone manufacturers to ensure all phones comply with "objective limits for safe exposure." The CDPH recommends not keeping your phone in your pocket, not putting it up to your ear for a prolonged amount of time, keeping use low if there are two bars or less, not sleeping near it at night and to be aware that if you are in a fast-moving car, bus or train, your phone will emit more RF energy to maintain the connection.
There is no danger from mobile phone electron radiation (it is non-ionising radiation). That document in California is wrong. The biggest risk is a unstable battery resulting in a fire in people pocket. Transmission power from mobile phones is limited to maximum 2W (bad signal areas). In towns and such areas most mobile phones are running on transmission power that is from 0.1mW and up to 0.5mW. General rule is that bad signal means more transmission power.
California does have a tendency to get ahead of themselves. They seem to be the first to warn people about danger but the problem is they don’t do the full science and come with the warning after the science is over, so they have a lot of false starts.
I think California wants to be progressive and say they are the first to protect people from danger while the rest of the world gets in trouble by taking time to study it. However often the benefits of things outweigh their danger. Especially if the danger isn’t fully proven.
Yes we get companies trying to block and confuse the science and that practice should be stopped, but policies should wait for the science process to get to a consensus before making policy.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I can't find much actual scientific information in any of the links in the summary. Can someone please provide a link to the actual findings of which mention is made?
There doesn't actually appear to be any, it seems to be made up from a bureaucrat based on faulty findings. Honestly? The entire thing reminds me of the "danger of EM radiation from powerlines!" that was hot shit in the 1980's and 90's, if you want to see an example of that in action, there's an entire near-cult-like anti-em-powerline following in Japan.
Om, nomnomnom...
I think its safe to say California is sorry.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/...
In 2016 40,000 people were killed in automobile accidents (nationwide. I can't get reliable numbers for California due to ambulance chaser web sites clogging search results). 4.6 million people seriously injured. These are real, recordable factual numbers, not some foggy "might possibly be but can't really see anything conclusive" epidemiological study.
But when a solution is offered, AKA self-driving vehicles, the outcry from the nut jobs is that there's no way they'll ever trust those darn confusers to shuttle them around. Even when you point out that aircraft with advanced autopilots are one of the primary reasons for their excellent safety record. Even when you point out that human error is the primary reasons for vehicle accidents. Even when they don't remember the last time they had to reboot their phone.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
I think its a question of rather being safe than sorry.
UCLA did a study which showed that cannabis smoke was not only not a cancer risk, but also may in fact reduce cancer risk. But now California is classifying cannabis smoke a carcinogen, on what basis exactly? Answer, totally made-up bullshit because they want to regulate where you are allowed to smoke to the last millimeter so that they can sell permits and write tickets. Everyone and everything is a profit center.
California's warnings and prohibitions started out with good intentions, and I am extremely appreciative of some of them — like, say, dechlorinated brake cleaner. But this state regularly goes too far.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think its a question of rather being safe than sorry.
UCLA did a study which showed that cannabis smoke was not only not a cancer risk, but also may in fact reduce cancer risk. But now California is classifying cannabis smoke a carcinogen, on what basis exactly? Answer, totally made-up bullshit because they want to regulate where you are allowed to smoke to the last millimeter so that they can sell permits and write tickets. Everyone and everything is a profit center.
California's warnings and prohibitions started out with good intentions, and I am extremely appreciative of some of them — like, say, dechlorinated brake cleaner. But this state regularly goes too far.
One study that disagrees with many other studies, and you want to cling on to it? Sounds just like what a climate science denier does.
It is alarmist in a nebulous sense, but it's not a warning. There aren't any actual claims about negative impacts to your health, just a bunch of bullshit about what may happen, or what some people believe. The actual title is, "CDPH Issues Guidelines on How to Reduce Exposure to Radio Frequency Energy from Cell Phones."
The closest thing to a solid claim that it makes is: "Although the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the risks of cell phone use, research suggests long-term, high use may impact human health." Claiming that the scientific community has not reached a consensus on this seems like an outright falsehood, but I suppose that as long as there's one holdout then you can say that it's not a real consensus.
The problem is that strategy causes no one to take California's concerns remotely seriously.
For example, prop 65 warnings are on everything and everywhere:
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mp...
It has no teeth because pretty much everything has that label. Many companies add the label as a matter of course, even if they don't have any of the relevant chemicals in some products because it's easier to apply the label to everything than keep track of whether they need to or not. Additionally, some of the chemicals on the list are about as likely to cause cancer as non-ionizing radiation.
Heck even contact with most shipping pallets can cause a package to be contaminated with formaldehyde enough to be detected in some of the tests, so a company without a warning could be at risk from that despite it being a shipping company's fault.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Scaremongering about GMO and cellphone radiation is the exact opposite of "progressive". Using that label for a bunch of luddites is very 1984.
Yeah liberals don't want to regulate behavior at all, except speech, voluntary gay conversion therapy, homeschooling, spontaneous sex, how you spend your money, freedom to hire, interactions with the opposite sex which nobody had a problem with up until 10 years ago, right to choose who to associate with, cake baking, running your business, wedding photography, hunting, eating, playing and on and on to virtually every area you can think of. Other than that, they're completely hands off unlike conservatives.
MasterBlaster turn off power and water from Arizona, see how California likes dark and thirsty!
That sixth-largest thing is misleading because it doesn't take into account taxes, fees, and cost of living. Once all that is accounted for, California winds up 12th, just behind Mexico.
It has a lot of teeth, just not really for the state. Just as with the ADA, a cottage industry of trial lawyers popped up to sue/settle with any business they could find that didn't have the sign or to quibble (as with Starbucks) over exactly what words need to be on the sign. This cell phone ruling is just a sop to those same lawyers so they can start pre-litigation shakedowns.
Why on Earth would you take any of those things into account in calculating the size of an economy?
That's some sort of standard-of-living calculation, not economy size.