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Turn your phone OFF when in any area with a potentially explosive
atmosphere and obey all signs and instructions. Sparks in such areas
could cause an explosion or fire resulting in bodily injury or even
death.
Areas with a potentially explosive atmosphere are not always clearly
marked. They include fueling areas such as gasoline stations; below
deck on boats; fuel or chemical transfer or storage facilities; vehicles
using liquefied petroleum gas (such as propane or butane;) areas
where the air contains chemicals or particles, such as grain, dust, or
metal powders; and any other area where you would normally be
advised to turn off your vehicle engine.
FDA Consumer Update
The FDA has been receiving inquiries about the safety of mobile
phones, including cellular phones and PCS phones. The following
summarizes what is known — and what remains unknown — about
whether these products can pose a hazard to health, and what can be
done to minimize any potential risk. This information may be used to
respond to questions.
Why the concern?
Mobile phones emit low levels of radiofrequency energy (i.e.,
radiofrequency radiation) in the microwave range while being used.
They also emit very low levels of radiofrequency energy (RF),
considered non-significant, when in standby mode. It is well known
that high levels of RF can produce biological damage through heating
effects (this is how your microwave oven is able to cook food).
However, it is not known whether, to what extent, or through what
mechanism, lower levels of RF might cause adverse health effects as
well. Although some research has been done to address these
questions, no clear picture of the biological effects of this type of
radiation has emerged to date. Thus, the available science does not
allow us to conclude that mobile phones are absolutely safe, or that
they are unsafe. However, the available scientific evidence does not
demonstrate any adverse health effects associated with the use of
mobile phones.
What kinds of phones are in question?
Questions have been raised about handheld mobile phones,
especially the kind that have a built-in antenna that is positioned close
to the user’s head during normal telephone conversation. These
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types of mobile phones are of concern because of the short distance
between the phone’s antenna — the primary source of the RF — and
the person’s head. The exposure to RF from mobile phones in which
the antenna is located at greater distances from the user (on the
outside of a car, for example) is drastically lower than that from
handheld phones, because a person’s RF exposure decreases rapidly
with distance from the source. The safety of so-called cordless
phones, which have a base unit connected to the telephone wiring in a
house and which operate at far lower power levels and frequencies,
has not been questioned.
How much evidence is there that handheld mobile phones might be
harmful?
Briefly, there is not enough evidence to know for sure, either way;
however, research efforts are ongoing.
The existing scientific evidence is conflicting and many of the studies
that have been done to date have suffered from flaws in their research
methods. Animal experiments investigating the effects of RF
exposures characteristic of mobile phones have yielded conflicting
results. A few animal studies, however, have suggested that low levels
of RF could accelerate the development of cancer in laboratory
animals. In one study, mice genetically altered to be predisposed to
developing one type of cancer developed more than twice as many
such cancers when they were exposed to RF energy compared to
controls. There is much uncertainty among scientists about whether
results obtained from animal studies apply to the use of mobile
phones. First, it is uncertain how to apply the results obtained in rats
and mice to humans. Second, many of the studies that showed
increased tumor development used animals that had already been
treated with cancer-causing chemicals, and other studies exposed the
animals to the RF virtually continuously — up to 22 hours per day.
For the past five years in the United States, the mobile phone industry
has supported research into the safety of mobile phones. This
research has resulted in two findings in particular that merit additional
study:
In a hospital-based, case-control study, researchers looked for an
association between mobile phone use and either glioma (a type of
brain cancer) or acoustic neuroma (a benign tumor of the nerve
sheath). No statistically significant association was found between
mobile phone use and acoustic neuroma. There was also no
association between mobile phone use and gliomas when all types of
types of gliomas were considered together. It should be noted that the