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Appendix B Message from the FDA
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. FCC
relies on FDA and other health agencies for safety questions about wireless
phones. 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 hand-held 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 Federal Communications Commission
safety guidelines that were developed with the advice of 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 radiofrequency energy (RF) 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 don’t 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