San Francisco Requires Cell Phone Radiation Warnings 258
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."
Hey Gavin (Score:5, Informative)
Please [wikipedia.org] educate [wikipedia.org] yourself [medpagetoday.com].
I think you might need a new dentist (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously - I didn't get anywhere near that many x-rays when I had my root canal/crown operation a couple of years ago.
Re:Medical Radiation the New Demon (Score:3, Informative)
I really hated that story. The news story that is. Your doctor story is sadly accurate.
In the news story, they mix non-ionizing radiation (like RF) and ionizing radiation (like X-ray), and don't clearly differentiate them. Both can be bad. Ionizing radiation can be worse. They miss the fact that even if every source of man made radiation were to be neutralized, both still exist at background levels. Well, unless you are exposed to daylight, then you're getting a bit of both. :)
Re:Phone companies would stand to lose a lot (Score:4, Informative)
There are populations that have been using cell phones for almost 30 years, and before them there were groups that used hand held radios of similar power levels for another few decades. Granted, the levels of use are probably going up, but in many cases the power output is also going down so you're talking about minimum 30 and up to 60 years of use, it shouldn't be too hard to get a group of long term radio and cell phone users together and have them take a health survey. In fact, you probably wouldn't even have to, all you'd really have to do is look at the rate of brain cancers compaired to the rate of cell phone adoption and if there's a strong correlation you can investigate further (here's a hint, there isn't one).
Re:poor reception (Score:4, Informative)
Similar problem when I go to visit the folks up in rural Wisconsin, the solution I've found is to put the phone into airplane mode (both of my most recent phones have had it so I assume it's becoming standard). That allows you to use the phone as a PDA (pull contact information, view/edit saved data, play games, etc) without it running down your battery in a matter of hours.
Re:Medical Radiation the New Demon (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If there is anything i've learned this year... (Score:3, Informative)
In some parts of the country it does. Have you forgotten about radon gas?
Re:Medical Radiation the New Demon (Score:3, Informative)
Ultraviolet light is ionizing radiation, and those others are burns.
Care to revise your statement?
Re:Banana Equivalent Dose of Cell Phone Radiation? (Score:2, Informative)