A Proposed Law Would Require Warning Labels for Cell Phones
A United States congressman is planning on proposing a new federal law which if passed and signed would require cell phones to have warning labels put on them. This information comes just as San Francisco is close to enacting a new ordinance which would than require the retailers to put information about the cell phone radiation on each of the cell phone models being sold.
This Wednesday the Congressman from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich, stated that he’s planning on introducing a bill which would require there to be warning labels put on all cell phones regarding the potential risks of using cell phones. This bill would additionally create a nationalized research project which would study health and cell phones. Without having any sort of concrete proof it seems as if this might be a little premature.
Congressman Kucinich did acknowledge in a statement that there are some studies which link using cell phones to health issues like brain tumors for example while there are others that don’t. His statement is that the studies which are funded from the telecommunications industry are obviously significantly less liable to find a linkage of the health problems and cell phones. He states that until we know for certain that there should be a labeling law to make certain that the cell phone users will be able to make their own decision on the risk levels that they’re willing to accept. He goes on further to say that people should be able to decide for themselves, not cell phone companies deciding for the rest of us.
The proposal by Congressman Kucinich would additionally make the call for an update to the SAR. The SAR is the Specific Absorption Rate and is a measurement of the radiation that cell phones emit of which the United States FCC requires all of the cell phone manufacturers to disclose. The standard of the SAR was set decades back and Kucinich states it deserves to be updated.
The bill that was passed in San Francisco by their city council is currently waiting signature from the mayor. If signed it will require retailers to display the SAR information on the cell phone display materials as well as making the stores explain exactly what SAR means and direct their consumer to further information about SAR which would be provided by the city.
The CTIA cell trade association states that this law would potentially mislead the consumer into thinking that there are some cell phones that are safer than other cell phones which is not the case. The FCC has actually already approved all cell phones that are sold in retail shops and deemed them as safe. The CTIA is right and if you did this on a national level it would potentially hammer the cell phone industry without merit nationwide.
The CTIA is going to stop holding their conferences in San Francisco after this year in order to protest the ordinance. When they were asked to comment on Congressman Kucinich’s thoughts and the proposed law they declined to comment.
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Tags: cell phone and health, Cell Phones