San Francisco to pass mobile phone radiation law

San Francisco appears poised to become the first city in the US to require mobile phone makers to publicly display how much radiation their products emit.

On Tuesday, the city's board of supervisors voted 10-1 in favor of a new law that requires handset makers to post in stores their products' specific absorption rate (SAR), which is a measure of the amount of radio waves absorbed by the user's body.

There's no scientific consensus on the dangers of mobile phone radiation. Scientists know that humans absorb radiation from cell phones, but it's not known if that absorbed radiation causes health risks, such as cancer. Some studies suggest that it does, while others do not. Scientists concur that more data is needed.

For more on this story, read SF law forces disclosure of phone radiation levels on CNET News.