Introduces mobile radiation law

21.06.2010

San Francisco becomes first U.S. city to require all mobile phone retailers to inform about mobile radiation risks.

by Rune H. Rasmussen

The passing of the new law comes after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom won support for his mobile phone ‘right to know’ ordinance that will require retailers to post warnings about the potential dangers of mobile radiation at the point-of-sale. The city council, known as the board of supervisors, voted 10-1 in favour of the law.

The law requires retailers to post radiation disclosure data next to each phone, listing their specific SAR rate – that is, the amount of radio waves absorbed into the mobile phone user’s body tissue. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), all phones sold in the United States must have a SAR rate no greater than 1.6 watts per kilogram.

Similar warnings were proposed in Maine in March, and in the State of California in recent weeks, but both bills did not pass.

Not without criticism
The mobile industry strongly opposes the law, claiming that radiation disclosure data may lead consumers to wrongly believe that there are proven dangers from using mobile phones, when, in fact, the impact on health of sustained use of mobile phones remains a matter of scientific debate.

Related article: Inconclusive mobile phone study

John Walls, a spokesman for C.T.I.A. - The Wireless Association, a trade group, said that forcing retailers to highlight radiation disclosure data might actually confuse consumers into thinking “some phones are safer than others.”

“We believe there is an overwhelming consensus of scientific belief that there is no adverse health effect by using wireless devices,” Mr. Walls said, “and this kind of labelling gets away from what the F.C.C.’s standard actually represents.”

In San Francisco, officials were cautioning that the law was not meant to discourage mobile phone use, or sales, but to make information that is already published by regulatory authorities more readily available.

The mayor's spokesman, Tony Winnicker, said: “This is not about telling people not to use mobile phones. Nobody loves his iPhone more than Mayor Newsom.”

SAR not a complete gauge
Camilla Rees at ElectromagneticHealth.org welcomes the new law, but at the same time she warns that the SAR rate is not a complete gauge of mobile phone safety:

“The mobile phone SAR value does not accurately reflect the potential for biological harm from the frequencies of the communication, and, very importantly, there are also some biological effects that have been shown to be worse at lower SAR values compared to higher SAR values, such as blood brain barrier permeability. In no way should consumers be relying on the SAR value alone as a measure of safety, but instead realise it is how one uses a mobile phone (speaker phone or headset vs. against one’s head) and for how long that matters most.”

“This bill is a first step”, says Dr. Devra Davis of the Environmental Health Trust. “It would be dangerous for people to assume that they can hold a lower SAR phone close to the head for hours a day. How and where phones are used determines the overall exposures to radiofrequency radiation.”