Sprint PPC-6600 - Manual (Page 179)

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Section 12: Maintenance, Safety, and
Troubleshooting
What kinds of phones are the subject of this update?
The term “wireless phone” refers here to hand-held 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 energy (RF) because of the short distance between
the phone and the user’s head. These RF exposures are limited by
Federal Communications Commission safety guidelines that were
developed with the advice of 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 well within the FCC's
compliance limits.
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 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 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 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.