Safety – LG LGBP5000 User Manual

Page 81

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LG5000

Safety

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

Radio Frequency (RF) energy 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.

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 Radio Frequency (RF) energy 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

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