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FDA belongs to an interagency working group of the federal agencies that have
responsibility for different aspects of RF safety to ensure coordinated efforts at
the federal level. The following agencies belong to this working group:
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Federal Communications Commission
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration
• National Telecommunications and Information Administration
The National Institutes of Health participates in some interagency working
group activities, as well.
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 radio frequency energy (RF) because of the
short distance between the device 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 device 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 energy (RF) exposures characteristic
of wireless phones have yielded conflicting results that often cannot be repeated