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Safety Guidelines
82
The 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
]
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (Administración de la
seguridad y salud laborales)
]
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration
]
National Telecommunications and Information
Administration
The National Institutes of Health participates in
some interagency working group activities, as
well.
The 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. The FCC relies on the FDA and other
health agencies for safety questions about
wireless phones.
The 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
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 radiofrequency
energy (RF) 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.
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