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wireless exposures that people get from these base stations
are typically thousands of times lower than those they get
from wireless phones. Base stations are thus not the subject
of the safety questions discussed in this document.
What kinds of phones are the subject of this
update?
The term “wireless phones” refers here to hand-held wireless
phones with built-in antennas, often called “cell,” “mobile,” or
“PCS”. These types of wireless phones can expose the user
to measurable radio frequency 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 phone wiring in a
house, typically operate at far lower per levels, and thus
produce RF exposures far below the FCC safety limits.
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 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