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Appendix B
FDA shares regulatory responsibilities for wireless phones with the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC). All phones that are sold in the United States
must comply with FCC safety guidelines that limit RF exposure. FCC relies on FDA
and other health agencies for safety questions about wireless phones. FCC also
regulates the base stations that the wireless phone networks rely upon. While these
base stations operate at higher power than do the wireless phones themselves, the
RF exposures that people get from these base stations are typically thousands of
times lower than those they can get from wireless phones. Base stations are thus not
the subject of the safety questions discussed in this document.
3. What kinds of phones are the subject of this update?
The term wireless phone refers here to hand-held wireless phones with built-in
antennas, often called cell mobile or PCS phones. These types of wireless phones
can expose the user to measurable radiofrequency energy (RF) because of the short
distance between the phone and the user's head. These RF exposures are limited by
Federal Communications Commission safety guidelines that were developed with
the advice of FDA and other federal health and safety agencies. When the phone is
located at greater distances from the user, the exposure to RF is drastically lower
because a person's RF exposure decreases rapidly with increasing distance from the
source. The so-called cordless phones; which have a base unit connected to the
telephone wiring in a house, typically operate at far lower power levels, and thus
produce RF exposures far below the FCC safety limits.
4. What are the results of the research done already?
The research done thus far has produced conflicting results, and many studies have
suffered from flaws in their research methods. Animal experiments investigating the
effects of radiofrequency energy (RF) exposures characteristic of wireless phones
have yielded conflicting results that often cannot be repeated in other laboratories.
A few animal studies, however, have suggested that low levels of RF could accelerate
the development of cancer in laboratory animals. However, many of the studies that
showed increased tumor development used animals that had been genetically
engineered or treated with cancer-causing chemicals so as to be pre-disposed to
develop cancer in the absence of RF exposure. Other studies exposed the animals to
RF for up to 22 hours per day. These conditions are not similar to the conditions
under which people use wireless phones, so we don't know with certainty what the
results of such studies mean for human health.
Three large epidemiology studies have been published since December 2000.
Between them, the studies investigated any possible association between the use of
wireless phones and primary brain cancer, glioma, meningioma, or acoustic
neuroma, tumors of the brain or salivary gland, leukemia, or other cancers. None
of the studies demonstrated the existence of any harmful health effects from
wireless phone RF exposures. However, none of the studies can answer questions
about long-term exposures, since the average period of phone use in these studies
was around three years.
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