LG LGVX6100 User Manual page 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
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.
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
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