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U.S. FDA
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Language: am;
VAR issu
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9
right page (145)
of CX75 FUG am, A31008-H7420-A40-1-4A19 (09.05.2005, 11:16)
U.S. FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration's (FDA) Center
for Devices and Radiological
Health Consumer Update on
Mobile Phones
FDA has been receiving inquiries
about the safety of mobile phones,
including cellular phones and PCS
phones. The following summarizes
what is know – and what remains
unknown – about whether these
products can pose a hazard to
health, and what can be done to
minimize any potential risk. This in-
formation may be used to
respond to questions.
Why the concern?
Mobile phones emit low levels of ra-
dio frequency energy (i.e., radio fre-
quency radiation) in the microwave
range while being used. They also
emit very low levels of radio frequen-
cy energy (RF), considered non-sig-
nificant, when in the stand-by mode.
It is well known that high levels of RF
can produce biological damage
through heating effects (this is how
your microwave oven is able to cook
food). However, it is not known
whether, to what extent, or through
what mechanism, lower levels of RF
might cause adverse health effects
as well. Although some research has
been done to address these ques-
tions, no clear picture of the biologi-
cal effects of this type of radiation
has emerged to date. Thus, the avail-
able science does not allow us to
conclude that mobile phones are ab-
solutely safe, or that they are unsafe.
However, the available scientific evi-
dence does not demonstrate ad-
verse health effects associated with
the use of mobile phones.
What kinds of phones are in question?
Questions have been raised about
hand-held mobile phones, the kind
that have a built-in antenna that is
positioned close to the user's head
during normal telephone conversa-
tion. These types of mobile phones
are of concern because of the short
distance between the phone's an-
tenna – the primary source of the RF
– and the person's head. The expo-
sure to RF from mobile phones in
which the antenna is located at
greater distances from the user (on
the outside of a car, for example) is
drastically lower than that from
hand-held phones, because a per-
son's RF exposure decreases rapidly
with distance from the source. The
safety of so-called “cordless phones,”
which have a base unit connected to
the telephone wiring in a house and
which operate at far lower power
levels and frequencies, has not been
questioned.
