Cell Phones and your Health

Friday, April 06, 2007

Since the early days when cell phones were launched to the market, an increasing number of health concerns arose questioning safeness of these devices. More than fifteen years later, researchers, physicians, and government entities know a little bit more about their repercussion.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been working closely with the National Academy of Science in order to discover and treat unknown health effects derived from cell phone exposure and use because these devices emit the same radio frequency energy that any other wireless communication device.

Radio frequencies are able to alter medical equipment such as heart bypasses, although microwave ovens act similarly, thus it is not the cell phone that is the hazard, but radio frequency energy (RF) emitted by modern devices and appliances.

After scientific testing, researchers found that health problems are not associated directly with cell phones or cordless phones because the emission of such radio frequencies is very low to cause any harm or adverse health effects.

Anyway, the Federal Communications Commission suggests limiting radio frequency exposure by reducing talking time and increasing the distance between a user's head and his handset or cordless phone.

This measure may prevent malignant brain tumor found in a few patients that have been using their cell phone or cordless phone for over ten years. However, the FDA is encouraging further studies on this subject as there is not enough evidence supporting the association between cell phones and brain cancer.