Safety
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| had been genetically engineered |
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| or treated with |
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| chemicals so as to be pre- |
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| disposed to develop cancer in |
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| the absence of RF exposure. |
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| Other studies exposed the |
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| animals to RF for up to 22 hours |
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| per day. These conditions are |
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| not similar to the conditions |
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| under which people use wireless |
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| phones, so we do not know with |
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| certainty what the results of such |
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| studies mean for human health. |
Safety | Three large epidemiology studies | |
have been published since | ||
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| December 2000. Between them, |
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| the studies investigated any |
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| possible association between the |
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| use of wireless phones and |
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| primary brain cancer, glioma, |
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| meningioma, or acoustic |
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| neuroma, tumors of the brain or |
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| salivary gland, leukemia, or other |
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| cancers. None of the studies |
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| demonstrated the existence of |
88any 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.
5. What research is needed to decide whether RF exposure from wireless phones poses a health risk?
A combination of laboratory studies and epidemiological studies of people actually using wireless phones would provide some of the data that are needed. Lifetime animal exposure studies could be completed in a few years. However, very large numbers of animals would be needed to provide reliable proof of a cancer promoting effect if one exists. Epidemiological studies can provide data that is directly applicable to human populations, but ten or more