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For Your Safety 119
3. What kinds of phones are the subject of this update?
The term “wireless phone” refers here to handheld 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 (RF)
energy because of the short distance between the phone and the user’s head.
These RF exposures are limited by FCC safety guidelines that were developed
with the advice of the 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 Radio Frequency (RF) energy 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 do not 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 health effects
from wireless phone RF exposures. However, none of the studies can answer
questions about long-term exposures, since the average period of phone use
in these studies was around three years.
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