FCC To Keep SAR Limits, Change RF Rules For Transmitters
RCR Wireless News
April 11, 2003

The Federal Communications Commission wants changes to rules governing radiation emitted by mobile-phone transmitters, an agency official said last week.

Bryan Tramont, an advisor to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, said proposed rule modifications would address RF measurement and other items. But, Tramont stressed, the proposal does not involve any alteration to the specific absorption rate, or SAR, radiation exposure limits.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers asked a federal appeals court to overturn the dismissal last month of five class-action suits that sought to force wireless carriers to supply consumers with headsets to reduce exposure to mobile phone radiation. The notice of appeal was filed last Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va. The same court is also reviewing a brain-cancer lawsuit thrown out last fall by U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake of Baltimore. Oral argument in the latter case is scheduled for June.

Blake dismissed the five class-action headset suits on March 5. Nine brain-cancer cases are pending before the Baltimore judge. Two plaintiffs with brain-cancer suits in Blake’s court have died in recent months. The most recent is Gib Brower, of San Diego, who died on April 5.

A study published in the March issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, found some mobile phones caused brain damage in rats. The mobile-phone industry points to other studies that fail to link cell phone use to health risks.