FDA CONSUMER UPDATE
SAFETY AND WARRANTY
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
• Federal Communications Commission
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration
• National Telecommunications and Information Administration
The National Institutes of Health participates in some inter-agency
working group activities, as well. FDA shares regulatory responsibilities
for wireless handsets with the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC). All handsets 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 handsets. FCC also
regulates the base stations that the wireless handset networks rely upon.
While these base stations operate at higher power than do the wireless
handsets themselves, the RF exposures that people get from these base
stations are typically thousands of times lower than those they can get
from wireless handsets. Base stations are thus not the subject of the safe-
ty questions discussed in this document.
3. What kinds of handsets are the subject of this update?
The term “wireless handset” refers here to hand-held wireless handsets
with built-in antennas, often called “cell,” “mobile,” or “PCS” handsets.
These types of wireless handsets can expose the user to measurable
radiofrequency energy (RF) because of the short distance between the
handset 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 handset 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 hand-
sets,” which have a base unit connected to the device wiring in a house,
typically operate at far lower power levels, and thus produce RF expo-
sures far below the FCC safety limits.
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