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Safety
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
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.
5. What research is needed to decide whether RF exposure from
wireless phones poses a health risk?