Days ahead of last week’s CTIA meeting in San Francisco and Dr. Devra Davis’ appearances to promote her book about the dangers of cell phone radiation, the FCC changed its website language on cell phone health effects. The Washington Post reports:
The Federal Communications Commission has changed its guidance to cellphone users worried about the health effects of wireless devices, dropping a long-standing recommendation that concerned consumers purchase phones with lower levels of radiation emissions.
The move comes amid a growing debate over cellphone safety and coincides with efforts in some jurisdictions – most notably San Francisco – to require wireless providers to more clearly state the radiation emissions of the phones they sell.
The revisions were made last week, without any formal announcement, to a consumer fact sheet posted on the FCC’s Web site. Consumer advocates criticized the agency for what they called a lack of transparency.
Based on the reading I’ve done on the subject, both the FCC and CTIA are correct on this point: a specific absorption rate measurement taken by the manufacturer isn’t an accurate guide to how much radiation the phone will emit. How and where the phone is actually used determines how much radiation the user is exposed to, and there is no evidence this exposure is safe. Industry and the FCC continue to claim that there is no evidence of harm…
Dr. Davis’ book summarizes the decades-long industry effort to discredit warnings that many scientists and research studies have issued about the adverse biological impacts of microwave radiation. It also goes into detail on how officials with industry ties have influenced exposure standards mentioned in this current FCC website text:
Federal, state, and local government agencies and other organizations have generally relied on RF exposure standards developed by expert non-government organizations such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP). Since 1996, the FCC has required that all wireless communications devices sold in the United States meet its minimum guidelines for safe human exposure to radiofrequency (RF) energy. The FCC’s guidelines and rules regarding RF exposure are based upon standards developed by IEEE and NCRP and input from other federal agencies, such as those listed above.
Sunroom Desk featured the last substantive change on this FCC website page here. That post contains a link to an even earlier, cached copy of the same page here.
Raising one of the issues in Davis’ book Disconnect (small print warnings in cell phone user guides), and showing that this issue is a worldwide concern, here is a link from yesterday’s UK Mail: Hidden health risk in mobiles: Phone giants accused of burying warnings in small print
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