Cigarette labels warn that using the product as intended may cause disease, disability and death. Cars have warnings that sitting too close to the airbags may cause injury. Highways have signs that deliver such startling messages as "Slippery When Wet."

But cell phones? Despite a lack of conclusive evidence about whether or not long-term use of cell phones may contribute to brain tumors or other disorders, cell phones carry no warning about such potential ill effects.

Except in San Francisco, that is. Under the Cell Phone Right-to-Know Ordinance of 2010, retailers in the city must display information about each cellphone's Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of radio frequency radiation.

Like the tobacco industry before it, the cell phone industry is fighting the measure, insisting the warnings are unnecessary and that there is no evidence cell phones are harmful to health. 

The phone companies may soon have more than San Francisco to worry about. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), known for going against the grain in Congress, has introduced the Cell Phone Right to Know Act, which would require a warning label on each handset sold nationwide.

The San Francisco fight is now in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the cell phone industry is arguing that it is a violation of the First Amendment to require businesses to post the regulations, even though nearly every square inch of space in California is already covered by one of the ubiquitous stickers warning that potential carcinogens may be lurking nearby.

The cell phone industry's lobbying organization, known as CTIA, also argues that the city ordinance is pre-empted by federal laws that do not require any warnings.

FCC standards

As CTIA tells it, radiation from wireless phones is limited by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and that the limit set by the FCC is 50 times less than what is harmful to human health. The phone companies say 100 percent of the phones for sale in the U.S. meet the FCC standard.

What the cell phone lobbyists omit from their arguments is that just last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the FCC standards were 15 years old and may not be adequate to protect public health. It's not just that the standards have not been updated recently. They have not been updated at all since they were established back in the early days of cell phone usage.

Critics note that the FCC’s current standards allow 20 times more radiation to reach the head than the body as a whole, do not account for the possible risks to children’s developing brains and smaller bodies, and consider only the impact of short-term cell phone use, not frequent calling over decades. 

“The FCC has been wearing a blindfold for more than a decade, pretending that while cell phones were revolutionizing how we communicate, the agency didn't have to take a hard look at what this meant for its so-called safety standards,” said Renee Sharp, director of Environmental Working Group’s California office and senior scientist.

Injunction issued

In October 2011, U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued an injunction delaying the labeling and poster requirements, but allowed the city to require stores to distribute a fact sheet.

Alsup said that although San Francisco has a public health interest in preventing cancer, the claimed interest "amounts only to protecting the public from a 'possible' carcinogen." Since the factsheets explain that "a debate exists about whether wireless phone use is linked to cancer and other illnesses," the judge upheld the law requiring their dissemination.

He directed the city to note that the World Health Organization has classified cellphone radiation as a "possible" carcinogen, putting it in the same league as coffee and pickled vegetables.

After San Francisco passed an amended ordinance within two weeks of Alsup's ruling, the cellphone companies against sought a preliminary injunction. Alsup denied the request, but the law has been stayed temporarily pending appeal.

Communist manifesto

The cell phone industry is taking a no-prisoners approach to the issue, not willing to make even the slightest concession. 

CTIA attorney Andrew McBride said the city is misusing its police power to make retailers say things they may not wish to say, and argued that the fact sheet is not objective.

The factsheet label is "like calling the communist manifesto a treatise on economics," McBride said.

"Let's not let this thing out the door until I get to litigate it because that's a bell that can't be unrung," he told the court. "Once I have to pass this out ... consumers will get the opinion that these phones are dangerous," Courthouse News reported.

San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said the law represents a reaction to sufficient evidence of harmful radiation.

"There is no rule that says that the government must wait until we know that a product actually kills people," he said. "Just look at asbestos; just look at tobacco. There was a long time where we didn't have conclusive proof that tobacco kills people, that asbestos kills people, but there was a strong suspicion."