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from the staying-indoors-without-power dept.
A French woman has been awarded disability payments for a condition which is not recognized by medical science:
Despite dispute over the very existence of the syndrome, it has emerged that a French court has recognised a 39-year-old woman's disability claim for "hypersensitivity to electromagnetic waves".
In the first case of its kind in France, the Toulouse court awarded Martine Richard €800 ($900) a month for three years - according to Robin des Toits, an organisation that campaigns on behalf of sufferers. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS or électrosensibilité in French) is purportedly caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields such as those generated by WiFi and mobile phones.
In a statement on Wednesday, Étienne Cendrier, Robin des Toits spokesman, hailed the news as a victory, saying: "We can no longer say that it is a psychiatric illness." Victims of EHS say it causes headaches, joint pain, sleep disruption and dozens of other varying symptoms. Nonetheless the World Health Organisation has no clear diagnostic criteria for the condition.
Richard, a former playwright and radio documentary director from Marseille, says she is now forced to live in a remote part of the Pyrenees, without electricity, to escape from electromagnetic fields.
The French National Agency for Health Safety of Food, Environment and Labour (ANSES) accepts that those claiming électrosensibilité have real symptoms, but note the absence of "an experimentally reproducible causal link" to electromagnetic waves. A report is due in early 2016.
[Editors note: If you want to see an extreme case of this portrayed, check out Chuck in the first season of Better Call Saul}.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:53AM
Possible experiments, try cellphone in speakerphone mode kept away from your head, and if you can find one, a wired headset w/ a ferrite core on the wire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @03:06AM
Celphone in speaker mode away from my head is OK (over a yard is quite tolerable, over two yards isn't noticeable to me).
Never found a headset with a ferrite core, headsets without have caused some of the worst headaches I had. I might as well just hold the phone to my ear.
SMS and tucking a phone into my pants pocket doesn't cause me any noticeable pain.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday August 30 2015, @03:44AM
You'd probably have to add the core yourself. If you can get a ring, just wrap the cord through it two or three turns.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday August 30 2015, @08:15AM
Fascinating discussion! A few times a year I meet people who, for whatever reason, claim they are unable to wear a watch; within a couple days or so, the watch just stops running. Have even heard some report that it doesn't matter if the watch is mechanical or battery powered. After some relatively short period of time, the watch just stops.
So, I am willing to take your report at face value. Let's take a closer look:
From parent comment:
From another of your comments:
And from yet another:
And another:
and this should do it:
Summary:There is directionality (most intense on the side where the source is), severity is mitigated by distance (over a yard is quite tolerable), and a number of different phones (and presumably bluetooth headsets) are able to set it off.
Proposal:
The distance to the phones provides a lessened intensity of stimulus (tolerable at one yard), lessened duration of stimulus (immediate deactivation upon kill switch activation ), randomization of time of stimulus, and simultaneous logging of stimulus and response.
That's the gist of the idea; feel free to tailor to your situation.
That should provide a goodly part of blindness to the testing along with as 'gentle' a test setup as I can imagine. Thoughts?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @08:33AM
Yup, directionality, yup, mitigation by distance, yup a number of phones set it off.
So your summary is on target.
As for your proposal, most of it looks pretty good as experimental design. The only problem is that I think you missed is that there is a cooldown period of roughly half an hour to an hour, so this would be a long experiment. Also, intensity is related to how clearly I perceive, so they can't be too far for reasonable identification. About two feet from my head with a ringing or active phone is enough for pretty clear and swift response (the neurologist's phone was closer, I think, but it was a bit behind me).
The main objections are that it will suck a lot, and it will take a long time, but I guess in the interests of science I can block out a day of suckage. I'm fairly sure a neurological institute could rustle up that experimental kit.
So, yeah, work with a team in the Pacific Northwest somewhere, and I will take time off work to make this happen.
As for the watch thing? I have no idea. That's not me.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday August 30 2015, @01:54PM
Thanks for the feedback! The watch thing was just an affirmation that I've encountered seemingly impossible stuff and part of my motivation to craft that reply.
It was unclear to me whether increasing the distance would reduce the recovery time. If the phones were set up, say, 4-5 feet away, you might lose directionality but still have an ability to sense that a phone was ringing and, with the much lessened intensity, you might be able to have less pain and quicker recovery?
I wonder whether it makes any difference whether or not the phone's ringer is turned on? An interesting variation would be to silence the ringers and have each of the two phones in a 5-sided box (open side to the video camera and away from you.) Maybe add a third input you could control to flag "I sense *something* is ringing" and then use the other two controllers to identify which one of the phones rang.
I'd be curious what an fMRI would reveal; take before and after scans and see what areas are 'lit up' differently.
If you were interested in pursuing this, I suspect your neurologist might know someone who would be interested in doing a study. It certainly sounds like something that could 'make' someone's research career with a well-written and documented research paper.
I'm sadly pressed for time and have a busy day ahead; I will check for replies as soon as I can.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @05:07PM
If you want a quick, clear, unambiguous response the phones need to be closer. As I said, I'm just not that sensitive compared to some of the claims. I get a headache from an active phone in a couple of feet, not a quiescent phone across the room. The problem is that the headache which results from that does take a while to diminish. If you want to test different ranges, it's going to take extra long.
The neurologist to whom I spoke admitted this was outside his field. But if you can find the number of someone who actually is interested and has the time (or army of postgrads to do their bidding) I'll give 'em a call, what the hell.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday September 03 2015, @01:12PM
Sadly, I'm nowhere near you and have no idea who might be interested in performing such a study.
My best suggestion at this point would be to contact your neurologist and ask him/her for suggestions. Whatever course you choose to pursue, I do want to take a moment to thank you for your time and patience in sharing your symptoms here. Until this point, I'd always thought that reports of cell phones issues to be mostly scaremongering or ill-informed blathering. There is, however, a part of my thinking which still holds the idea that "failing to show adverse results does not necessarily mean that it is safe."
I wish you the very best, and hope you do pursue this. Who knows, you may learn of others who share this 'condition' and be able to compare notes and learn from each other.
Wit is intellect, dancing.