each year. At that rate, assuming 80 million users of mobile 

phones (a number increasing at a rate of about 1 million per 

month), about 4800 cases of brain cancer would be expected 

each year among those 80 million people, whether or not they 

used their phones. Thus it is not possible to tell whether any 

individual s cancer arose because of the phone, or whether it 

would have happened anyway. A key question is whether the 

risk of getting a particular form of cancer is greater among 

people who use mobile phones than among the rest of the 

population. One way to answer that question is to compare the 

usage of mobile phones among people with brain cancer with 

the use of mobile phones among appropriately matched people 

without brain cancer. This is called a case control study. The 

current case control study of brain cancers by the National 

Cancer Institute, as well as the follow up research to be 

sponsored by industry, will begin to generate this type of 

information.

What is FDA s role concerning the safety of mobile 

phones?

Under the law, FDA does not review the safety of radiation 

emitting consumer products such as mobile phones before 

marketing, as it does with new drugs or medical devices. 

However, the agency has authority to take action if mobile 

phones are shown to emit radiation at a level that is hazardous 

to the user. In such a case, FDA could require the manufacturers 

of mobile phones to notify users of the health hazard and to 

repair, replace or recall the phones so that the hazard no longer 

exists.

Although the existing scientific data do not justify FDA 

regulatory actions at this time, FDA has urged the mobile phone 

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