Ignoring Science and Common Sense, Hawaii Wants Warning Labels on Cell Phones

If you like your laws to be based on fact, brace yourself for this one. A bill in Hawaii's state legislature would require every cell phone sold in the state to carry an unremovable warning label, occupying 30 percent of the back of the phone, that says, “To reduce exposure to radiation that may be hazardous to your health, please follow the enclosed product safety guidelines.”

Section 1 of Hawaii Senate Bill 2571 begins: “The legislature finds that the expanding use of cellular telephones has resulted in concerns over the potential dangers of human exposure to electromagnetic radiation emitted by cellular telephones.” That’s true, Hawaii. There are, indisputably, concerns. They just aren’t substantiated by any evidence.

According to studies, both new and old, there isn’t evidence that cell phones cause cancer. An 11 year study conducted by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research program produced 60 peer-reviewed papers, but no evidence that cell phones are causing cancer .

Even the FCC goes so far as to say there is “no scientific evidence that proves that wireless phone usage can lead to cancer or a variety of other problems, including headaches, dizziness or memory loss,” but allows that the issue is still being looked into by other organizations.

The Hawaii state legislature doesn’t seem to care whether or not cell phones are actually a threat to health; concern is reason enough to require that cell phones carry permanent warning badges. “According to reports every expert consulted by the relevant committees argued against the measure, but the legislators passed it anyway,” Steven Novella wrote on NeuroLogica Blog. “The measure has one more committee to get through, and then it would go to the House for a vote.”

Novella allows that although there is no clear link between cell phone use and brain cancer, “the plausibility of a link is low but not zero.” An academic neurologist at Yale, Novella has outlined two ways researchers are examining whether or not cell phones can be linked to cancer: the biological approach which involves looking that the radiation produced by cell phones and its effect on cells in test tubes and animals, and an epidemiological one, looking for a correlation between cell phone use and brain tumors.

The biological tests have produced results only with amounts of radiation that no cell phone user is exposed to. Non-ionizing radiation that the cell phone produces is “not energetic enough to break chemical bonds, and therefore should not cause DNA damage that could lead to cancer,” Novella writes, even while allowing that there might be other mechanisms at work. Hence, not ruling it out, but “we can just say it’s unlikely,” he says. He’s a scientist, after all, and meticulous about only putting things in absolutes when they deserve it absolutely.

There isn’t a correlation between cell phone use and brain tumors after using a cell phone for ten years or fewer and beyond that the data isn’t yet conclusive. If there were a correlation, the prevalence of brain tumors would be rising along with the prevalence of cell phones for the last two decades, but brain tumors have been holding steady and even dropping slightly. So Hawaii can’t be basing this warning on epidemiological data.

Daniel de Gracia pointed out that the language that the legislature chose isn’t really even a warning; it’s a request that the user read the cell phone’s manual. As a resident of Oahu, de Garcia is concerned that requiring cell phones sold in Hawaii to carry large, irremovable labels raises the compliance cost for phone manufacturers sending cell phones to the island state, where the cost of shipping already raises the price of phones and other consumer goods.

He also points out that the requirement that label occupy 30 percent of the back of the phone could actually become very intrusive, as cell phone design morphs beyond being shaped like a phone. For instance, while its status as a cell phone is sort of ambiguous, where’s the "back" of Google Glass?

Novella is more concerned about a superfluous warning label could lead to “warning fatigue,” causing people to ignore warnings about actual threats as they’re swallowed in the noise. There are proven dangers out there, Hawaii. Why bother us with this?

“If anything the sticker should warn about the risk of texting or using a cell phone while driving. That is a proven risk,” said Novella.

The bill hasn't passed yet, but so far, "proven risk" doesn't really seem to be the concern.