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11
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
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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