San Francisco will tell the world about mobile phone radiation

MOBILE PHONE USERS in the UK and EU will soon be able to tell if their mobile gadget is more or less likely to be toasting their brain cells.

A law passed in San Francisco will require mobile phone companies to post how much radiation they are pouring into your ear everytime you ring someone up to say, "I am on the train".

Retailers will have to list each phone's "specific absorption rate", which is the measurement of radiation absorbed by a phone user's body tissue that each manufacturer is required to register with the US Federal Communications Commission.

It only applies to San Francisco but the lists will be up on the web and will most likely be copied worldwide.

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said that it is a modest and very reasonable measure that provides greater transparency and information for consumers for whom this is a concern.

The Wireless Association opposed the measure, saying it could mislead consumers into believing that some mobile phones are safer than others. The association claims mobile phones that generate a lot of radiation are just as safe as those that don't.

Mobile phones are not labelled as more or less safe, but consumers are likely to make such inferences themselves by looking at phones' published specific radiation absorption rates. µ