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47
Safety
The National Institutes of Health participates in some interagency working
group activities, as well.
The FDA shares regulatory responsibilities for wireless devices with the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). All wireless devices that are
sold in the United States must comply with FCC safety guidelines that limit
RF exposure. The FCC relies on the FDA and other health agencies for
safety questions about wireless devices.
The FCC also regulates the base stations that the wireless device networks
rely upon. While these base stations operate at higher power than do the
wireless devices themselves, the RF exposures that people get from these
base stations are typically thousands of times lower than those they can
get from wireless devices. Base stations are thus not the subject of the
safety questions discussed in this document.
3. What kinds of wireless devices are the subject of this update?
The term “wireless device” refers here to handheld wireless devices with
built-in antennas, often called “cell”, “mobile”, or “PCS” wireless devices.
These types of wireless devices can expose the user to measurable Radio
Frequency (RF) energy because of the short distance between the wireless
device 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 wireless 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 devices,” 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 devices have yielded conflicting results
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