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Additional safety information
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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