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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
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.