San Francisco Abandons Mobile Phone Radiation Labels

judgecorp writes "The city of San Francisco has abandoned a law proposed in 2010 which would have required mobile phones to be labelled with their radiation level. Mobile phone industry body the CTIA fought the bill in court, arguing that there is not enough evidence of harm. The city is not convinced phones are safe — it says its decision to abandon the law is simply based on the legal costs."

Re:can't get past the hype and bad studies

[Joce640k]

Cellphone radiation is non-ionizing. You know that, right?

You also understand what 'radiation' and 'non-ionizing' mean in this context, right?

(ie. "radio waves" and "utterly incapable of damaging a DNA molecule")

Re:so consistent

[Joce640k]

Casual, recreational use of a variety of brain-altering drugs: fine.
Anonymous bathhouses where one can - hetero or homo - have sex with a variety of strangers: lifestyle choice.

Cellphones: "We should make sure we warn people about the dangers!"

Nope. I'd like to reassure you that the first two things also have plenty of lunatics trying to ban them.

Re:can't get past the hype and bad studies

[Anonymous Coward]

Radar and microwave oven radiation is non-ionizing as well. Standing in front of a radar emitter still does have adverse health effects (up to and including death). You shouldn't override the safety features of your microwave oven either. Electromagnetic radiation has effects other than turning your body's atoms to ions.

Re:can't get past the hype and bad studies

[Greyfox]

Seems easy; measure your cellphone with a geiger counter (Accounting for background radiation) and label it with the number of millisiverts you're shooting into your brain while using it (0). Done. Unless, as XKCD points out, it's a banana phone. I wonder how many of those damn hippies have a sliced banana in their granola in the morning. I'd like to see their reaction when it's pointed out that they're getting more radiation from that than their cell phone.

Re:can't get past the hype and bad studies

[interkin3tic]

I wonder how many of those damn hippies have a sliced banana in their granola in the morning.

(Sigh)... Why is it always the hippies who take the blame for any San Francisco craziness? The closest things to hippies in SF are the drug addicts on the streets. They're not in control of politics, they're not even in control of themselves. SF and many californians are more concerned about the environment than a lot of other places, but that's not who is pushing for it.

TFA quotes Ellen Marks as a proponent of the bill. Googling her name and cell phones gets you to an op ed piece, and her bio reads

Ellen Marks is a member of Temple Sinai in Oakland, California; a past president of Women of Temple Sinai and of the Sisterhood of Temple Israel in Stockton, California; co-founder with her son Zack of the California Brain Tumor Association; and lead author of the Cell Phone and Brain Cancer Legislative Briefing Book, which has been translated into eight languages, including Hebrew. She is also director of Government and Public Affairs for the Environmental Health Trust.

http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=2885 [reformjudaismmag.org]

Not exactly a stereotypical dirty hippie or treehugger.

The article also mentions "powerwatch" as being behind the campaign, which is a group based in the UK to oppose cell phones.

These aren't California hippies, these are conspiracy-theorist idiots. Get it right. This isn't environmentalism, this is stupidity.