A scaled-down version of a bill that would have made Maine the first state in the country to require warning labels on cell phones failed to connect with members of the Maine House today, who rejected the measure 83-62. The amended version of the bill would have simply asked the wireless communications industry to conduct an informational effort to make Mainers aware of the potential linkage between cell phone use and brain cancer.

It would be hard to find a bill in this year's legislative session that attracted more national attention than state Rep. Andrea Boland's attempt to place warning labels on cell phones. Citing medical evidence that she said linked cell phone use with brain cancer, Boland and her bill has been featured on CNN, the CBS Evening News, Wall Street Journal and other major media outlets.

But when the bill came out of committee, the Sanford Democrat was left with a measure that looked a lot different than the one she had submitted. "This is really about being informed, allowing people to have information that they may use for themselves," she says.

Gone was the requirement for stick-on warning labels to alert partents that cell phones were dangerous for children. Instead, the committee sent out two amended versions, one of which asked the state Center for Disease Control to post any warning information on its Website that suggests that cell phone use could cause cancer.

A smaller number of those on the Health and Human Services Committee supported a competing amendment favored by Boland that would have encouraged the wireless communications industry to fund an informational campaign in Maine to alert cell phone users to the potential risk of cancer.

Boland says the cell phone industry just doesn't do enough. "There's a long history here on the lack of safety testing of this product," she says. "Industry has the responsibility to ensure that their products are safe -- that's what our consumer safety protectton laws are based on, that's why we see Toyota in front of the congressional panels right now trying to explain itself. That's what we expect -- we expect our government to protect us."

"I think that there's so many different issues that are causing cancer in people that we couldn't begin to label everything," says
state Rep. Meredith Strang-Burgess, a Cumberland Republican and cancer survivor. Strang-Burgess supported Boland's original bill and the amended plan that encourages the cell phone industry to police itself.

She says that even though cell phones have less wattage than the versions that were popular 20 years ago, they still pose a danger -- particularly to children. "They're sleeping with them, they're texting all night with it by their head in the pillow -- it's wild. So I think there's some legitimate question in my head."

But state Rep. Sarah Lewin, an Eliot Republican, disagreed, saying parents should able to resolve any perceived threats involving cell phones and kids. "The parents should just grow up, get a grip and do something about the kids overuse of cell phones."

Other opponents questioned the true origins of the bill, suggesting that it was not a major concern to constituents here. "I think if this bill was presented to us by someone up here in Maine that was concerned about cell phones, we probably would have listened a little closer," says state Rep. James Campbell, a Newfield Republican.

Campbell says Boland never provided him with any conclusive evidence that demonstrated any link between incidents of brain cancer and cell phone use in Maine. Instead, he said he heard a lot of testimony from supporters in California who had tried to institute a similar law there.

"If this was so important, why didn't the good representative get and gather the experts in the state of Maine to pass a bill that worried about the people of Maine and let's do it in Maine and let the people of California and their entourage stay in California and pass the bill in California," Campbell says.

The full House agreed, voting against the industry bill, 83-62.