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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.
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