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Safety Guidelines
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
