Berkeley City Posts Cell Phone Radiation Info On Its Website
Berkeley City has now posted information on its Public Health Division website regarding cell phone radiation health and safety concerns, providing links to the World Health Organization’s announcement not too long ago classifying mobile phone radiation as a carcinogen. This action was on the urging of the Environmental Health Trust and Community Health Commission. You can view the Public Division web page here.
The City Council also has on hold an ordnance similar to the San Francisco law requiring cell phone retailers to provide consumers with fact sheets regarding cell phone radiation at the point of sale. The SF ordnance is currently being contested in court by the CTIA, the Wireless Association, and Berkely City is adopting a wait-and-see attitude before acting on its own bill.
The Environmental Health Trust and Community Health Commission urged the City of Berkeley to post on its website links to the World Health Organization’s announcement regarding cell phone radiation and safety information. Officials considered passing legislation that would give consumers protective information at point of sale but are waiting to see about San Francisco’s current lawsuit with the Cellular Telecommunications Industries Association, which represents Apple, Google, and every major cell phone provider in the United States.
Here are the related stories:
City to consider posting cell phone radiation information on its website
Berkeley City Council will consider at its meeting Tuesday a resolution that would post information regarding cell phone radiation on the city’s Public Health Division’s website. If approved, the recommendation — from the city’s Community Health Commission — would link to information from the World Health Organization and other reputable sources on the division’s website, according to the resolution. The resolution states that posting the information is an opportunity to provide information to residents to protect their health from cell phone radiation, which was declared a possible human carcinogen by WHO earlier this year. “It’s a disservice to society at large to argue against the need for precautionary health warnings,” said Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
The decision to link to the information is at the discretion of health officer Janet Berreman, according to city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross. According to the resolution, the City Council has pursued legislation modeled after Right to Know, and providing information on the health division’s website is part of the city’s pivotal role “due to the potentially adverse health effects from inaction.”
See the original article at dailycal.org (photo courtesy of dailycal.org)
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I think it’s about time that more government entities at least disclose information that are to the public’s interest. The cell phone safety issue is still under debate, but people should become more aware of the debate.