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Safety
On the other hand, if the phone is m ounted against the waist or other
part of the body during us e, then that part of the body wi ll absorb
more RF energy. Wireless pho nes marketed in the U.S. are require d to
meet safety requireme nts regardless of whether t hey are used against
the head or against the body. Eith er configuration shou ld result in
compliance with the safety limit.
kDo wireless phone a ccessories that cla im to shield the head from RF rad iation work?Since there are no known ris ks from exposure to RF emission s from
wireless phones, there is no reason to believe that accessories that
claim to shield the head from t hose emissions reduce r isks. Some
products that claim to shiel d the user from RF absorptio n use special
phone cases, while other s involve nothing more than a metal lic
accessory attach ed to the phone. Studies have shown t hat these
products generally do n ot work as advertised. Unlike “ hands-free” kits,
these so-called “shie lds” may interfere with prop er operation of the
phone. The phone may be force d to boost its power to compensate,
leading to an increase in RF a bsorption. In Februar y 2002, the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) c harged two companie s that sold devices
that claimed to protect wirele ss phone users from radi ation with making
false and unsubstantia ted claims. According to FTC, thes e defendants
lacked a reasonable bas is to substantiate their claim.
kWhat about wirel ess phone interfer ence with medical equipment?Radiofrequency ener gy (RF) from wirele ss phones can interact wi th
some electronic device s. For this reason, FDA helped devel op a detailed
test method to measure elect romagnetic interferen ce (EMI) of implanted
cardiac pacemakers an d defibrillators from wir eless telephones.
This test method is now part of a s tandard sponsored by the
Association for the Advan cement of Medical Instru mentation (AAMI ).