Fda Update On Mobile Phone Safety - Siemens S40 User Manual

86

FDA Update on mobile phone safety

The U.S. Food and Drug that high levels of RF can produce
Administration's Center for biological damage through heating
Devices and Radiological Health effects (this is how your microwave
Consumer Update on Mobile oven is able to cook food).
Phones However, it is not known whether,
to what extent, or through what
FDA has been receiving inquiries mechanism, lower levels of RF
about the safety of mobile phones, might cause adverse health effects
including cellular phones and PCS as well.
phones. The following summarizes Although some research has
what is known – and what remains been done to address these ques-
unknown – about whether these tions, no clear picture of the biolog-
products can pose a hazard to ical effects of this type of radiation
health, and what can be done to has emerged to date. Thus, the
minimize any potential risk. This available science does not allow us
information may be used to to conclude that mobile phones are
respond to questions. absolutely safe, or that they are
unsafe.
However, the available scientific
Why the concern? evidence does not demonstrate
Mobile phones emit low levels of adverse health effects associated
radiofrequency energy (i.e., with the use of mobile phones.
radiofrequency radiation) in the
microwave range while being used. What kinds of phones are in
They also emit very low levels of question?
radiofrequency energy (RF), consid- Questions have been raised about
ered non-significant, when in the hand-held mobile phones, the kind
stand-by mode. It is well known
that have a built-in antenna that is
positioned close to the user's How much evidence is there that
head during normal telephone con- hand-held mobile phones might
versation. These types of mobile be harmful?
phones are of concern because of Briefly, there is not enough evi-
the short distance between the dence to know for sure, either way;
phone's antenna – the primary however, research efforts are on-
source of the RF – and the per- going. The existing scientific evi-
son's head. dence is conflicting and many of
The exposure to RF from mobile the studies that have been done to
phones in which the antenna is date have suffered from flaws in
located at greater distances from their research methods.
the user (on the outside of a car,
for example) is drastically lower the effects of RF exposures charac-
than that from hand-held phones, teristic of mobile phones have
because a person's RF exposure yielded conflicting results. A few
decreases rapaidly with distance animal studies, however, have sug-
from the source. gested that low levels of RF could
The safety of so-called "cordless accelerate the development of can-
phones, " which have a base unit cer in laboratory animals.
connected to the telephone wiring
in a house and which operate at far altered to be predisposed to devel-
lower power levels and frequen- oping one type of cancer devel-
cies, has not been questioned. oped 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 stud-
ies 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 develop-
ment used animals that had already
been treated with cancer-causing
chemicals, and other studies
exposed the animals to the RF vir-
Animal experiments investigating tually 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
In one study, mice genetically 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
87
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 gliomas
were considered together. It
should be noted that the average
length of mobile phone exposure in
this study was less than three
years.
When 20 types of glioma were
considered separately, however, an
association was found between
mobile phone use and one rare
type of glioma, neuroepithellioma-
tous tumors. It is possible with
multiple comparisons of the same
sample that this association
occurred by chance.
Moreover, the risk did not
increase with how often the mobile
phone was used, or the length of
the calls. In fact, the risk actually
decreased with cumulative hours
of mobile phone use.