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Safety
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
Radio Frequency (RF) energy 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,
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