Nokia 6670 User Manual

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Nokia 6670 User Guide

141

Appendix B

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. FCC relies

on FDA and other health agencies for safety questions about wireless phones. 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 hand-held 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 Federal Communications Commission safety guidelines that were

developed with the advice of 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 levels of RF

could accelerate the development of cancer in laboratory animals. However,

many of the studies that showed increased tumor development used animals that

had been genetically engineered or treated with cancer-causing chemicals so as

to be pre-disposed to develop cancer in the absence of RF exposure. Other studies

exposed the animals to RF for up to 22 hours per day. These conditions are not

similar to the conditions under which people use wireless phones, so we don’t

know with certainty what the results of such studies mean for human health.
Three large epidemiology studies have been published since December 2000.

Between them, the studies investigated any possible association between the use

of wireless phones and primary brain cancer, glioma, meningioma, or acoustic

neuroma, tumors of the brain or salivary gland, leukemia, or other cancers.

None of the studies demonstrated the existence of any harmful health effects

from wireless phone RF exposures. However, none of the studies can answer

questions about long-term exposures, since the average period of phone use in

these studies was around three years.