Monday, July 26, 2010

Cellular Breakdown

Your cell phone may be killing you, and eggs are bad for you.

Or not.

Not sure if you heard the news (and if you heard it from your cell phone, you're really not going to like this), but it turns out that cell phones may cause brain tumors.

Or not.

The truth is, nobody knows for sure, but then again, nobody knew if ships would fall off the edge of the world until they tried, either.

This weekend, however, the cell phone industry is suing the city of San Francisco over its new labeling law, which gives consumers access to the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) limit of each cell phone at the point-of-sale.

It turns out the cell phone industry does not like making those numbers readily available to consumers who are enamored by their shiny phones.

I for one think labeling is fine - even needed - and that this lawsuit is about as silly as the first cell phones.

After all, information is power, and the more information someone has, the better informed their decisions are. It's just like the recent calorie labeling enacted in New York. Who wouldn't want to know how many calories are in a "low-fat" blueberry muffin?

The science of cell phone tumors is still up in the air, so, whether cell phones turn into the new asbestos or if they're as innocuous coffee, knowing the information can only be a good thing.

Who knows, maybe if home buyers knew more than the banks were legally responsible to tell them, our economy wouldn't be so unhealthy.

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