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posted by CoolHand on Saturday August 29 2015, @09:24PM   Printer-friendly
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}.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @08:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @08:36AM (#229757)

    Sure.

    As long as
    a) I'm paid for my time (the cooldown period means that each test will require substantial time before addition pain sources register as being different)
    b) I get high quality pain meds (I did mention headaches which last for substantial periods, didn't I?)

    a) Why? Those are all your problems, not ours. You're getting a diagnosis, and you'll be breaking new ground. You'll get paid millions to lecture around the world over the course of your life. Why the fuck should you get paid for a diagnosis? You pay the doctor, the doctor doesn't pay you. That's how the system works.

    b) You want drugs, go find yourself a dealer.

    You give us nothing but appeals to authority and childish emotional outbursts demanding that we accept your half-baked conclusions, and then you have the cheek to insist that you won't provide evidence your position because it's not fair on you. What's actually not fair is that you're getting any airtime for this vacuous non-scientifically supported bullshit to start with.

    Time to grow up, we're not buying a tarot reading from you.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @09:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @09:43PM (#229972)

    > a) Why? Those are all your problems, not ours. You're getting a diagnosis, and you'll be breaking new ground. You'll get paid millions to lecture around the world over the course of your life. Why the fuck should you get
    > paid for a diagnosis? You pay the doctor, the doctor doesn't pay you. That's how the system works.

    News break: people who participate in medical trials tend to get compensated for time and trouble. I'm not asking for anything unusual. And I don't want to lecture, I don't want to spend stupid amounts of time in airplanes for the amusement of the TSA, and so far I have a diagnosis, however imprecise. If you want to study me, make it worth my while.

    Actually, scratch that. You're obviously a troll. If a qualified neurologist (possibly with the assistance of postgrads/electrical engineers/whoever) wants to investigate me, we can work something out. Trolls online don't get to study me.

    > b) You want drugs, go find yourself a dealer.

    Again, it may surprise you, but people who take part in medical studies tend to get related medications for free - this includes palliatives. So either offer the drugs in a study, or go bother someone else.

    > You give us nothing but appeals to authority and childish emotional outbursts demanding that we accept your half-baked conclusions, and then you have the cheek to insist that you won't provide evidence your position
    > because it's not fair on you. What's actually not fair is that you're getting any airtime for this vacuous non-scientifically supported bullshit to start with.

    I don't demand that you accept any conclusions. And frankly, judging by your post, any such demands would be ignored on the strength of your fanaticism. I will provide evidence - in fact, I already offered to (but what the hell, reading is such hard work and you clearly are having trouble with reading comprehension already) but not on my own dime, without painkillers, any more than I already have.

    > Time to grow up, we're not buying a tarot reading from you.

    Didn't offer one. Still not offering you one.

    I hope you're sitting down, because I have some big news:

    I didn't ask for anything - I offered information. You are absolutely free to take me at my word, doubt my every word, or denounce me as a tool of ... communists? Fundamentalists? Who do we not like this week?

    The net outcome to my life beyond my idle Sunday afternoon troll-feeding of your belief system is nil.

    So tone down the rhetoric. Take three deep breaths. Have some dip.