Quick start guide

69
Safety
produced conflicting results, and many
studies have suffered from flaws
in their research methods. Animal
experiments investigating the effects of
Radio Frequency (RF) energy 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 do not 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.