Motorola V101 User Manual

Page 148

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In summary, we do not have enough information at this point to assure the public that
there are, or are not, any low incident health problems associated with use of mobile
phones. FDA continues to work with all parties, including other federal agencies and
industry, to assure that research is undertaken to provide the necessary answers to
the outstanding questions about the safety of mobile phones.

What is known about cases of human cancer that have been
reported in users of hand-held mobile phones?

Some people who have used mobile phones have been diagnosed with brain cancer.
But it is important to understand that this type of cancer also occurs among people
who have not used mobile phones. In fact, brain cancer occurs in the U.S. population
at a rate of about 6 new cases per 100,000 people each year. At that rate, assuming
80 million users of mobile phones (a number increasing at a rate of about 1 million
per month), about 4800 cases of brain cancer would be expected each year among
those 80 million people, whether or not they used their phones. Thus it is not possible
to tell whether any individual's cancer arose because of the phone, or whether it
would have happened anyway. A key question is whether the risk of getting a
particular form of cancer is greater among people who use mobile phones than
among the rest of the population. One way to answer that question is to compare the
usage of mobile phones among people with brain cancer with the use of mobile
phones among appropriately matched people without brain cancer. This is called a
case-control study. The current case-control study of brain cancers by the National

1039b80o.book Page 144 Monday, December 17, 2001 2:00 PM

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