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Washington, DC (Islam Online) - Cellular phone companies will now have to disclose the level of radiation that their phones carry, according to a report released by the associated press.
According to the release, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) confirmed that starting in August, all cellular phone companies will have to report the radiation levels and will begin packaging the results in their products three to six months after that.
The matter is alarming, considering the amount of consumers that are cellphone users currently. A study done on the matter caused a stir, claiming that holding a cellphone to your head for long periods of time could actually be detrimental to your health. However, other experts have contradicted that claim, saying that there is no evidence that cellphone use for long periods of time could cause damage to a person's health.
As a safety measure, CTIA decided to go ahead and put their policy into effect. "There has been increasing interest in this, and this is our way of responding, but we were also looking for an opportunity to make this information more understandable for consumers," said a CTIA official, according to the AP report.
The step is a wise one at a time when major manufacturers are being hit by multi-billion dollar lawsuits. In 1999, attorneys sought punitive damages of $4.8 billion against General Motors last year in a California car fire. However, a judge reduced that to $1.09 billion. That figure ranked as the highest punitive damages case in U.S. history until last week, when Florida attorneys were awarded $194 billion in a case against the five largest tobacco companies in the United States.
Further studies will be conducted in the near future in order to get a more accurate reading on the extent of how much damage cellphones cause to people's health. The question is, how many people will be waiting by their cellphones to hear the news?
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