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Environmental Protection
Agency
•
Occupational Safety and
Health Administration
(Administración de la
seguridad y salud laborales)
•
Occupational Safety and
Health Administration
•
National Telecommunications
and Information
Administration
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