Starting next month, cellular phone makers will be required to disclose information on the radiation levels produced by their phones under a new policy adopted by the wireless industry’s most influential trade group.

The new guidelines will be imposed for all new handset models submitted for product certification by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.

Every phone maker needs to report that figure to the Federal Communications Commission when applying for product approval. The FCC began making those readings available in late 1998, but the information wasn’t easy to find and it was not until last month that the agency began making them more widely available on its Web site.

The actual radiation measurement won’t be printed on the box of new cell phones, but consumers will be shown how to access the information from the FCC. Cell phones will start being packaged with the new information in three to six months.

Guests:

• David Reynard, husband of Susan Ellen Reynard, who died of a brain tumor in 1992. He joins us from St. Petersburg, Florida.
• Louis Slesin, Editor, Microwave News.
• Simon Best, with Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy, a quarterly news report. He is a medical journalist speaking to us from Britain.

Related links:

• Microwave News
• Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy