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The National Institutes of Health
participates in some interagency
working group activities, 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 radiofrequency
energy (RF) 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,