Could This Be The Haven For The Electrosensitive?
May 11th, 2008
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Electrosensitivity is rapidly becoming one of the most common non-existent conditions as more and more people find out about it and realize it offers an excuse to be a victim and a drama queen without actually having to deal with any real persecution or hardship. In fairness, there are certainly some people who do honestly believe that they are made sick by technology. One way to tackle this might be to teach these folks about the inverse square law and explain the difference between a low frequency electromagnetic field and a microwave field, but more and more they are demanding that cell towers be shut down and the world abandon technology for their perceived benefit.
Well, I’d like to propose an alternative for these people. What if there were a place in the world where there actually were standards for RF emissions that were strictly enforced. Where cell phone towers were banned no FM radio or broadcast television stations were transmitted for miles. A place where the only radio broadcasts allowed were from a part time low-power radio AM station. Here, in this dream of the electro sensitive and nightmare for everyone in a modern society, mountain ranges block external radio signals, the power grid is heavily grounded and inspected for interference. Cordless telephones and residential wifi are allowed only at the lowest power and enforcers occasionally drive around with spectrum analyzers in case a signal gets a bit too strong.
Actually there is such a place and believe it or not it’s located right in the United States. The area is known as the “National Radio Quiet Zone.” It surrounds the Greenbank Radio Observatory and since the 1950’s has had some of the most restrictive RF emissions regulations in the world. It was chosen partially because the area is sparsely populated. The enforcement gets more and more extreme as one approaches the big radiotelescopes at Greenbank. In the immediate area around the telescope even automobiles are limited to diesel powered vehicles, which do not have the potential for interference that can come from a spark plug ignition system.
The area is also home to the Sugargrove Radio Intelligence Facility, which once was one of the major hubs of the NSA’s global monitoring system. Today it is less important as fewer point to point communications are carried by satellite than in the past and submarine cables have become the method of choice for voice and internet traffic. (That doesn’t really matter though because these days the NSA can just tap the cables by requesting an illegal wiretap under the Patriot Act and the phone companies comply.)
Here’s a little video. If you have ES, I suggest you move there and stop bothering everyone. Although I’m sure anyone with ES will find something else to complain about even in the NRQZ.
Higher Resolution Version of the Above Video
And here’s another interesting article on the NRQZ from Wired Magazine.
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Good Science, History, Not Even Wrong, inverse square. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 6:04 am
Please comment upon
)
http://mcs-america.org/mcsanewsjune2008.htm#_The_Cell_Phone
– I’d love to hear your scepticism in full flow…
Quote Comment
May 26th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I’m so sick of people saying that just because they don’t experience something that it’s obviously not real.
Here’s just one of the really good articles on the subject that pulls together a lot of information from different studies and arenas. http://www.bioelectricshield.com/In-the-Media/Electromagnetic-Sensitivity-Millions-Affected-by-the-Mysterious-Symptoms-of-a-Silent-Epidemic.htm Are you really willing to stick your head in the sand until the day you find out that you’re really sick because you refused to believe this is possible? And I think we aren’t going to know for a long time, just how severe the problem is and how many of our health and emotional issues are being caused or increased by the EMF around us. What’s to lose?
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May 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Cnau said:
First how dare you suggest that we reject this idea because we don’t experience it? I challenge you to go through every posting and every comment on this site and show one instance where anyone used this as a reason to question the existence of this phenomenon. You will not find one, I guarantee you it.
We reject this nonsense for one simple reason: there is no physiological mechanism that could present with this so selectively, such that RF from a cellphone tower will cause a reaction, but that a higher field strength signal from another source will not.
There is however plenty of documentary evidence for the existence of psychosomatic conditions, and this phenomena of electro-sensitivity fits all the criteria for a such a condition.
So given a well recognized medical condition on one hand, and the ravings of a few hysterics on the other with no other proof than reports of their own feeling on the matter, which one do you expect us to believe?
Once this has been proven by proper double-blind testing under proper experimental conditions, we will re-evaluate, but to date no one has produced those results.
In other words, it is a lack of proof that makes us doubt, not a lack of experience.
And please don’t point to a site selling crap of this sort as a source of reliable information, we are skeptics here not fools.
Quote Comment
May 27th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Cnau said:
**sigh** this coming from someone who sites a website that is selling a little trinket that is supposed to block these fields. That is such a massive and obvious violation of basic physics it’s hardly worth even borthering to address the rest.
In any case, RF fields have been around forever and artificial ones have been around since the early 20th century. There have been plenty of studies that have looked at it and to date: ZIP, Nothing, Nada. No evidence.
And if this were true, it wouldn’t be that hard to prove. A condition where someone gets an acute pain when near a transmitter would be a very simple double-blind experiment. Have people go into rooms transmitters randomly turned on or off and check for a statistically significant trend toward more reports of discomfort when the transmitters are on. It’s about as simple as this kind of experiment could get.
This has been done and they have found nothing.
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September 24th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Such a terribly ignorant person to call it fake when so many people are already suffering in a hell where much of the world refuses to even admit their condition. It is debilitating and because everyone thinks it is somehow healthy to have wireless everywhere so many are prisoners in their own homes and worst of all the governments of the world are not willing to even acknowledge the existence of the condition because of the blood money from the big companies that make phones and computers. Only Switzerland allows it so far but the EU may soon standardize it with the help of god, because nobody in most countries can get the disability coverage that anyone else with a debilitating illness can get. Discrimination because their condition might hurt someone’s greedy profit making.
Lets hope you never get this painful and real condition because you will also be a prisoner in a world that will hurt you. People can develop it later in life. We do not know why because the scientists refuse to study it to find out. Do you ever notice you get headaches near mobile towers and computer wireless? Many people do and it could be a first sign that you are developing the condition. It could get worst to be so before you talk so bad about this condition maybe you should ask yourself how you would feel.
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September 24th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Chris,
Are you saying you disagree with the author’s initial point; If people believe they are suffering from ES, then the National Radio Queit Zone would be the ideal place for them to live?
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September 24th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Chris
I totally agree with you. I believe the reason the symptoms tend to show up later in life is that like other types of radiation, it’s a cumulative effect. So the older we get the more our systems have been torn down – also the amount of exposure is increasing exponentially.
As far as the idea that a simple double blind study – walk into a room with exposure and see if you feel anything – it’s normally not that immediate, but more a general breaking down of energy and gradually worsening issues. This analogy is kind of like saying – take a drag on a cigarette – gee nothing happened – so it’s obviously completely safe and there’s no proof there’s any negative effects.
I’m not a proponent of getting rid of technology or wi-fi – I love my computer. But I do use a WaveShield or BioPro chip on my cell phone and headset, I don’t life under high tension lines, I don’t sleep with my computer in my bedroom and I do wear a Bioelectric Shield – why, because I feel better when I wear it, and I’ve talked to other people who have been similarly helped. Do I just believe anything I’m told? Absolutely not. But I am open enough to realize that not everything can be 100% explained yet.
Read Lynne McTaggart’s Book “The Field” and even Dan Brown’s new book “The Lost Symbol” yes, yes I know it’s fiction…but he too talks about The Field and some of the astounding new discoveries being made by science on many levels.
Quote Comment
September 24th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
The previous comment is Spam and should be treated as such.
Quote Comment
September 24th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
EMS sensitive said:
The product violates the laws of physics. It is impossible to stop electromagnetic energy from propagating without some kind of physical shield within the direct path of the field. There is a narrow exception to this by using destructive interference, but that only applies to a very narrow area of space where directly out of phase by 180 degrees. It is impossible to use destructive interference as a general purpose means of canceling out electromagnetic waves in a broad area. It also only works at a very narrow frequency and requires a secondary, phased and synchronized oscillator.
Making that a “chip” or charm or amulet or something will somehow create an area that the electromagnetic field is not active in or where it is weaker or somehow opposed is not possible.
The statement is as impossible as saying that you have a device which will produce an area of darkness around it. You can’t have a trinket that is constantly surrounded by darkness. The only way to produce darkness is to block light. You could have a shadow, but that’s because there is a physical shield blocking the light. The same is true with any form of electromagnetic energy.
DV82XL said:
Meh. I don’t feel threatened by it. It’s not making it impossible to read this and it does at least respond to a comment.
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July 23rd, 2010 at 5:46 pm
You’re just a prejudiced bigot against disabled people. I have this illness and it is very real. I get horrible headaches every time I am somewhere that has wireless internet. They had to take it out of the office I worked in because of this. Sometimes I get sick from cellphone towers too and so I have to stay away from those because if I’m near it for more than a few minutes I get a headache and dizzy.
A lot of you bigots out there need to be stopped. Even my doctor didn’t believe me because of you bigots. I now go to a naturopath who has helped me a lot with this disease. Guess what though, my insurance won’t pay for it and you can’t get any medical leave for this in the US because of people like you.
IT IS TOTALLY REAL
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July 23rd, 2010 at 5:52 pm
If I recall correctly, I believe drbuzz0 has a standing offer to pay anyone who claims to have this condition to take part in some double-blind tests. Why don’t you email him and see what can be done?
My recollection may be in error, so if I’ve got that wrong, I apologise in advance to doc.
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July 23rd, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Finrod said:
Yep. I will pay anyone one thousand US dollars. I may raise that, but at the moment, I am keeping it at one grand because I want it to be credible and so I need to keep it within an amount of money I can actually pay.
I’m willing to be flexible and negotiate on the procedure. The big criteria I will not compromise on is that it has to be double-blind and the person has to show significant coloration between sources of RF radiation and their reported symptoms while the transmitters are visually isolated to assure no audible or visual clue as to whether they are turned on or off.
Quote Comment
July 24th, 2010 at 1:03 am
I know the truth. I do not need to prove it to anybody especially not a narrow-minded biggot and I don’t need your money, which I am sure you would never give because those kinds of tests are always rigged or make someone so sick to begin with they cant even go through with it. What the hell is a double blind test? Some kind of scheme methinks. Who is to say what is significant? YOU? HA!
I know this is real and I bet you do too or you would not be trying so hard to convince people it is not
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July 24th, 2010 at 1:34 am
H. J. S. said:
In fact you DO have to prove it.
If you expect to collect insurance, you are taking money from a pool of funds that the rest of us pay into. That being the case, you’re damned right you have to prove it. The same holds if you want to limit the utility of telecommunications by stopping the spread of cell towers, or WiFi. You demand that your condition be recognized, yet you refuse to provide any proof except your say-so, call anyone that doubts you a bigot, yet you baulk at undergoing a simple test.
The only questions here are who the hell do you think you are, and why shouldn’t we think you are a fraud, or mentally ill?
Quote Comment
July 24th, 2010 at 1:47 am
H. J. S. said:
It means that the test subject is not aware of which items are controls/placebos and which are the actual stimuli (in this case, being live rf tests) and that any proctors or interviewers who interact with the test subject are likewise unaware.
Both the test subjects and those who administer the test are unaware of which are real and which are control. Hence the term “double blind”
H. J. S. said:
No, that’s based on statistics. It depends on what your confidence level is and how much probability of error you accept, but it comes down to the standard deviation and the probability of an even happening by dumb luck.
Quote Comment
June 26th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Wow, this vile blog post is among the top hits for “green bank, wv electrosensitivity” on Google.
I can only hope that one day the arrogant, more-empirical-than-thou douchebags who are out here in such force get a little taste of the microwave sickness themselves. We know from cold-war era Soviet medical literature that cumulative, long-term microwave exposure is an important factor in the development of the constellation of symptoms that we now call “electrosensitivity”, although there is also, of course, considerable variability among the population in terms of susceptibility. So all I can say is keep using those cell phones, guys. Preferably in remote areas where you have weak signal and the phone has to up the output power to successfully transmit. And keep ‘em pressed nice and tight up to your skulls (even though those hypochondriac phone manufacturers tell you to keep them at least an inch from your head). Anything else would just be letting the crazy people win! And whatever happens, just remember: the headaches, dizziness, nausea, tinnitus, anxiety, and heart palpitations that you too will likely eventually experience when in close proximity to wireless devices will be just a desperate cry for attention indicative of deeply some repressed childhood trauma.
All Heil CTIA!
Quote Comment
June 27th, 2011 at 1:31 am
Crazy Hypochondriac said:
Thus once again proving the point
Quote Comment
June 27th, 2011 at 1:55 am
Crazy Hypochondriac: Good to see you using an accurate name around here, most people like you don’t tell us what they are until we read their post but you tell us right in the byline.
Quote Comment
June 27th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
The World Health Organization WHO, (they are looked to by healthcare around the world to set precident) has come out recently in two ground breaking statements 1. Cell phone most probably DO cause cancer, but because like cigarettes it takes years for the damage to show up, we won’t know the real scope of the danger for another couple of decades, http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/index.html
2. Sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation, EMS, electro-sensitivity, IS an true medical condition. http://www.bioelectricshield.com/Electromagnetic-Sensitivity/world-health-organization-who-recognizes-electromagnetic-sensitivity-as-an-illness.html
So maybe crazy hypochondriac isn’t so crazy after all….It’s sad that when a new illness shows up, it’s often hard to pinpoint or diagnose, and it takes years before there is a preponderance of evidence to show cause, thus all those who were initially affected are labeled hypochondriacs, very often, they are eventually validated by science….this is one of those cases. The World Health Organization is stating that there is an issue, people are getting sick.
Quote Comment
June 27th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
The WHO got criticised pretty severely here over pandering to the quacks who think mobile phones cause cancer, maybe you should read why they are wrong.
As for the second, there are people who suffer if they think they are near an EM field but attempts to replicate it have found that it correlates not with the presence or absence of an EM field but the sufferers perceptions of the presence or absence of an EM field.
Quote Comment
June 27th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
CN said:
The WHO were fools for revising their statement on mobile phones, but even so, they said no such thing. They never stated that they “do” or even “probably” do. All they said is that they “possibly” do, which is more than they should have.
No major organization or agency that has reviewed the subject has ever said so. Not the FCC or the FDA or the National Cancer Institute or the Royal Society. Not Health Canada, not the European Heads of Medicines Agencies or the British Cancer Society or the Pan-American Health Organization or the Australian Department of Health. Not the International Telecommunications Union or ISO or IEEE.
No. No major international agency has ever stated that there is proof or even probable cause. No agency of any major industrial nation has either.
CN said:
There have been double blind tests on this subject. They have found absolutely nothing to it. It’s not a terribly hard thing to test either.
Now look. I’m offering money. Initially I offered one thousand US dollars. I’ll offer five thousand now. If anyone cares to chip in more, I’ll offer more. All you have to do is prove that this is true.
The test is very very simple. Wireless devices are placed in boxes that are relatively rf-transparent but hide whether they are on or not. Wifi routers, cell phones, wireless cameras, etc etc. They’re all going to be connected to a power source and a switch is thrown to power them on and start the transmitters.
The only catch – you are not told if the switch that is turned on is “live” or “sham” – you don’t know whether the devices are actually receiving power and transmitting. Neither does the person proctoring the test. No, only someone else you can’t see decides if the devices are actually powered on.
So simply put, you just say whether or not it’s making you sick and headachy.
Ten shots. Get ten right and you win the money. If you get 8 or 9 out of 10 right, then I’ll be willing to redo the test. Any less and it’s considered an out and out failure.
You can go up to the boxes or whatever. You can even choose devices that you claim are especially prone to causing symptoms. The only restriction is you can’t see them and they can produce no sound or other indicator of being on.
And I’m more than willing to have observers and documentation of everything. You can have people you trust observe whether the devices are really plugged in. The only restriction is that nobody who is visible to the person being tested can know whether the devices are on.
Fair?
Quote Comment
July 14th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
When it comes to this issue, we’re currently somewhere between laugh at and fight.
Europe is already leading the way when it comes to acknowledging the problem, and will likely lead the way in doing something about it, too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/8514380/Ban-mobile-phones-and-wireless-networks-in-schools-say-European-leaders.html
http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta11/ERES1815.htm
By the way, do any of the haters here have credentials akin to those held by the people who signed this document?
http://www.icems.eu/resolution.htm
Also, are any of you doctors, like the people who signed this one?
http://www.starweave.com/freiburger/
Just curious…
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 12:11 am
You just don’t get it do you?
All we are asking for is one double blind test on this subject. One. All the signatures from all the most credentialed people in the world mean nothing. Just one double blind test showing one person that claims to have this condition can detect an EM field with no external clues and we would all believe.
Just one…
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 12:17 am
Josh said:
Except when you lose which you will (the reason we are fighting you is because you are hurting us, sad thing is you’re not even getting any benefit from it).
Josh said:
No, we’re at the point at which your concerns have been shown to be bogus so many times it is just not worth doing any further research on the issue.
Not that the suffering isn’t real, just that it doesn’t come from the cause you think it does.
Josh said:
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy seems to work well enough at curing ‘electro-sensitivity’, I don’t see any problem with public health systems paying for it.
Josh said:
Is there anyone with a decent grasp of basic science in there? Didn’t think so.
Josh said:
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the names on that list are people who have never even heard of that resolution (creationists do it all the time and the kooks claiming low level non-ionising radiation is harmless are every bit as bad).
Besides, it isn’t credentials which really matter, but evidence and you kooks just don’t have any which actually stands up to scrutiny, doesn’t matter how many PhD’s you can find to sign a statement.
Josh said:
From 2002, how many would have changed their minds by then and realised that there actually wasn’t such evidence? The points about names which don’t belong also apply as does the fact that many medical doctors do not really understand the scientific method (besides, plenty of quacks have MDs or Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery degrees).
Of course it was just as much nonsense in 2002 as it is today and it was just as well known back then that the way mobile phones harm people is when idiots talk on them or text with them while driving a car, not through low level non-ionising harmless radiation.
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 12:21 am
DV82XL said:
I’d really need to have multiple independent tests of that person to be really sure and to have people knowledgeable about trickery and slight of hand to also be involved in the testing.
The idea that a human can reliably detect such things is just so far out of line with all that we currently know that it should be classified as an extraordinary claim demanding extraordinary evidence.
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July 15th, 2011 at 12:36 am
Anon said:
Several trials are asumed for that one test.
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 12:44 am
DV82XL said:
Of course, but I’d still really need to have it be repeated a bit more than that.
Also there’s http://xkcd.com/925/ which raises a rather good point.
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 8:20 am
The World Health Organization has changed their previous opinion about the harmlessness of EMF, including cellphones and DECT devices which include such things as baby monitors and cordless phones. They do state that the effects are cumulative and the results may be be fully apparent for decades…remember smoking, and asbestos debates?
http://whynotwired.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/parliamentary-assembly-%E2%80%93-council-of-europe-may-27th-2011-calls-for-precautionary-principle-warns-against-emf-especially-for-vulnerable-populations-%E2%80%A6/
http://whynotwired.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/world-health-organization-classifies-radiofrequency-electromagnetic-fields-as-a-possibly-carcinogenic-to-humans/
Here’s another article that pulls together from various sources…and yes, they may be trying to sell something, but they are also simply trying to get the word out, or they wouldn’t be so free in citing other sources and sending you off to other websites, and they even include on their site non-gadget related methods for minimizing your exposure.
http://www.bioelectricshield.com/World-Health-Organization-News/world-health-organization-who-cell-phones-and-wifi-may-cause-cancer.html
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 8:28 am
Anon said:
How exactly would you do a double blind study? The affects are cumulative, not just walk into a room with EMF and have symptoms.
That’s like asking that a smoker take a puff and immediately show the damages, versus a non smoker.
Or that you breath in asbestos and then if you don’t show cancer immediately you’re not being affected.
Or maybe we should ingest small doses of pesticides….
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 11:20 am
CCT said:
The article you commenting on, talks about alleged illness (electrosensitivity) that is supposed to give sufferers headaches, nausea etc. because of EMF from electronic devices (mainly wireless ones). In other words, at least some people who call themselves electrosensitive, do indeed claim to have very noticeable symptoms the second they get close to operating mobile phone or wifi router.
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
WHO said:
No they don’t, in fact they don’t even state that there is an effect.
Still, they have gotten a very well deserved debunking here.
WHO said:
A bunch of stupid politicians without any understanding of basic science using the discredited precautionary principle really doesn’t mean much to reasonable people.
WHO said:
Something they did with no good reason.
WHO said:
They are frauds who are just trying to take the money of gullible fools (such as yourself) who think their gadgets has any chance of even doing what they say (digital communications systems just increase power if you attenuate the signal, at least until they stop working due to inadequate signal strength so all you’d do if you actually did block some of the signal would be to reduce battery life and make it drop out easier).
The criminals who made that site belong in jail.
CCT said:
Well a lot of people seem to think they do feel the effects immediately.
As for cumulative effects, we still haven’t found any.
CCT said:
Yes, but there actually is good evidence that smokers have higher cancer rates than non smokers and also a good mechanism for how those cancers can be caused.
Neither of those exists for low level non-ionising radiation.
CCT said:
Again we have evidence of higher cancer rates among those who would have been exposed to the most asbestos as well as plausible mechanisms for that cancer to be caused by asbestos.
CCT said:
Depends on what pesticides as to whether or not it would be dangerous. The amount left on the food you buy is safe though.
Quote Comment
July 15th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
CCT said:
Bad analogy. If someone takes a puff of a cigarette there are actually real indicators that can be measured right away. If you hook someone up to an EKG and have them inhale cigarette smoke you can see it effect the heart right away. It constricts some blood vessels and in some it will cause immediate airway constriction.
Inhaling an irritating piece of debris like asbestos will also have immediate effects that can be noted.
CCT said:
We already do,
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