GAO Wants FCC to Come Clean

FCC Should Reassess Its Advice on Cell Phone Radio-Frequency Limits: GAO - eWeek.com

Questions about whether smartphones and the radio-frequency energy they emit can cause health problems in users were the impetus for an investigation by the Government Accountability Office. What it found was that the Federal Communications Commission's current RF guidance doesn't reflect the latest research and that testing requirements may not identify the possible maximum exposure in some use cases.

GAO now recommends that the FCC "formally reassess and, if appropriate, change its current RF energy exposure limit and mobile phone testing requirements related to likely usage configurations, particularly when phones are held against the body," it wrote in a summary of its July report.

"Some consumers may use mobile phones against the body," says the GAO report, "which FCC does not currently test, and could result in RF energy exposure higher than the FCC limit."