169
Safety
thus not the primary subject of the safety que stions discussed in this
document.
What are the results of the re search done already?The research done thus far has produced conflicting resul ts, and
many studies have suffered from flaws in their research method s.
Animal experiments investigating the effects of radiofrequ ency
energy (RF) exposures characteristic of wireless pho nes have
yielded conflicting results that often cannot be repe ated in other
laboratories. A few animal studies, however, have suggested that low
levels of RF could accelerate the development of cancer i n laboratory
animals. However, many of the studies that showed increased tumor
development used animals that had been genetically en gineered
or treated with cancer-causing chemicals so as to be pre -disposed
to develop cancer in the absence of RF exposure. Other s tudies
exposed the animals to RF for up to 22 hours per day. These
conditions are not similar to the conditions under w hich people use
wireless phones, so we don’t know with cert ainty what the results of
such studies mean for human health.
Three large epidemiology studies have been published si nce
December 2000. Bet ween them, the studies investigated any possible
association between the use of wireless pho nes and primary brain
cancer, glioma, meningioma, or acoustic neuroma , tumors of the
brain or salivary gland, leukemia, or
other cancers. None of the studies demons trated the existence of any
harmful health effects from wireless phone R F exposures. However,
none of the studies can answer questions about long-term exposures,
since the average period of phone use in these studies was arou nd
three years.
I