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as well.
The 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. The FCC relies on the FDA
and other health agencies for safety questions
about wireless phones.
The 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
handheld wireless phones with built-in
antennas, often called “cell”, “mobile”, or
“PCS” phones. These types of wireless phones
can expose the user to measurable Radio
Frequency (RF) energy because of the short
distance between the phone and the user’s
head.
These RF exposures are limited by FCC safety
guidelines that were developed with the advice
of the 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 Radio Frequency (RF) energy 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 do not know with certainty what the results
of such studies mean for human health.
Three large epidemiology studies have been
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