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Safety Guidelines
The FDA belongs to an interagency
working group of the federal
agencies that have responsibility
for different aspects of RF safety to
ensure coordinated efforts at the
federal level. The following agencies
belong to this working group:
v National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health
v Environmental Protection Agency
v Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (Administración de
la seguridad y salud laborales)
v Occupational Safety and Health
Administration
v 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