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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. FCC relies on
FDA and other health agencies for safety questions about wireless phones. 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 hand-held 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 Federal Communications Commission safety guidelines that were developed
with the advice of 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 radiofrequency energy (RF) 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 don't
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.
Appendix B Message from the FDA
107
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