User's Guide Part 2

106 Sendo Z100 User Guide
10
Safety
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 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 known—
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
information may be used to respond to questions.
Why the concern?
Mobile phones emit low levels of radiofrequency
energy (i.e., radiofrequency radiation) in the
microwave range while being used. They also emit
very low levels of radiofrequency energy (RF),
considered non-significant, 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 questions, no clear picture of the biological
effects of this type of radiation has emerged to date.
Thus, the available science does not allow us to
conclude that mobile phones are absolutely safe, or
that they are unsafe. However, the available
scientific evidence does not demonstrate any
adverse 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 conversation. These types of
mobile phones are of concern because of the short
distance between the phone’s antenna—the primary
source of the RF— and the person’s head. The
exposure 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
person’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.
How much evidence is there that hand-held
mobile phones might be harmful?
Briefly, there is not enough evidence to know for
sure, either way; however, research efforts are on-
going. The existing scientific evidence is conflicting
and many of the studies that have been done to date
have suffered from flaws in their research methods.
Animal experiments investigating the effects of RF
exposures characteristic of mobile phones have
yielded conflicting results. A few animal studies,
however, have suggested that low levels of RF could
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