User Manual

Table Of Contents

163

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 predisposed 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

neu-roma, 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.

5. What research is needed to decide whether RF exposure from wireless

phones poses a health risk?

A combination of laboratory studies and epidemiological studies of people