Official News page 4

REAL LIFE NEWS: MOBILE PHONES MAY BE SAFE, BUT WE HAVE TO BE WARNED ANYWAY

by Hazed

Remember a few weeks ago I reported that a study had sorta, kinda reported that there was no danger of getting a brain tumor from your mobile phone? But that people didn't believe it, even though the amount of radiation coming out of a phone is far too low to have any effect on living cells?

Well, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors really, really didn't believe it, because they have passed an ordinance that means all mobile phones will have to have warning labels attached to them indicating their radiative output and Specific Absorption Rate.

Now, just what is the use of that? Do you know what a radiative output means, or how high it has to be before you should worry? Or what a Special Absorption Rate is, and what kind of figure means it's safe? I certainly don't and I am sure you don't either. So the stickers will panic the paranoid and be ignored by everyone else.

So what's behind this unwarranted hysteria about mobile phones causing brain tumors? Well, it all started in 1988 when David Reynard gave a cellphone to his wife, Susan. Four years later, she died of brain cancer. David was convinced the phone had caused the cancer: as he explained on TV, "she held it against her head and talked on it all the time". So he sued the phone industry. Lawyers everywhere started to rub their hands together in glee, imagining the huge fees all these prospective lawsuits are going to bring them...

There's still about a week to go before the Mayor of San Francisco signs this law into being, so it's possible that sense will prevail... but don't hold your breath!

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