Owner’s Manual

72
SafetyGuidelines
The 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:
o National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health
o Environmental Protection Agency
o Occupational Safety and Health Administration
o National Telecommunications and Information
Administration
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.