Panasonic GU87 - Manual (Page 101)

Appendix C: Consumer Update 97
APPENDIX C: CONSUMER UPDATE
Consumer Update on Mobile Phones
(Published by U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health,
October 20, 1999.)
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 kind 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 accelerate the development
of cancer in laboratory animals. In one study, mice genetically altered to be predisposed to
developing one type of cancer developed more than twice as many such cancers when they were
exposed to RF energy compared to controls. There is much uncertainty among scientists about
whether results obtained from animal studies apply to the use of mobile phones. First, it is
uncertain how to apply the results obtained in rats and mice to humans. Second, many of the
studies that showed increased tumor development used animals that had already been treated
with cancer-causing chemicals, and other studies exposed the animals to the RF virtually
continuously — up to 22 hours per day.
For the past five years in the United States, the mobile phone industry has supported research into
the safety of mobile phones. This research has resulted in two findings in particular that merit
additional study:
1. In a hospital-based, case-control study, researchers looked for an association between mobile
phone use and either glioma (a type of brain cancer) or acoustic neuroma (a benign tumor of
the nerve sheath). No statistically significant association was found between mobile phone
use and acoustic neuroma. There was also no association between mobile phone use and
gliomas when all types of gliomas were considered together. It should be noted that the
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