“My face turns red, I get a headache, my vision changes, and it hurts to think. Last time [I was exposed]I started getting chest pains – and to me that’s becoming life-threatening”
That’s Diane Schou, she’s one of the 5 per cent (!) of Americans who think they suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS). Symptoms of EHS include skin burning, muscle twitching, chronic pain, etc, and is caused by exposure to mobile phones, Wi-Fi and other electronic devices, basically they’re allergic to modern life. I don’t mean to demean other people’s beliefs and/or health problems but…
What the f**k.
Schou’s husband, bless his heart, built a Faraday Cage for her to live in — it was a wooden frame with two layers of wire mesh and a door that could be sealed shut. All the more better to block out the signals, you know? That’s where Schou spent much of her time before she found her safe haven: Green Bank, West Virginia. Green Bank is part of the US Radio Quiet Zone — wireless signals are banned 21,000km across to prevent interference with the giganto radio telescopes in the area. Green Bank is slowly emerging as the destination du jour for these Wi-Fi ‘fraidy cats — no one carries mobile phones, no one uses wireless tech and people can breathe now!
According to the BBC, dozens have flocked to the area and are now able to live a normal life. As normal as crazy people can get, I guess. [BBC via BoingBoing]
Image: Rob Wilson/Shutterstock
Martin
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 9:31 AMi agree, some of the people makes me wonder about what they are really allergic too. As far as I have seen/read there is no known link from radio frequecy to any possible reaction in the human body.
what happens to these people if they need to have an MRI or CT scan?????
Barry Brannan
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 10:51 AMAre you serious? The WHO has recently declared mobile phone radiation to be a “Possible Human Carcinogen”. This is based on scientific research that has found evidence of tumors/cancers in mobile phone users.
http://www.microwavenews.com/IARC.RF.Decision.html
Aaron
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:50 PMAre you serious? The WHO report was widely misreported in the media. Maybe you should actually go back at read the report instead of reading a moron at news.com.au report on it.
Bottom line, if you’re in the incredibly small group of people get a brain tumor, then there’s a very slim chance your phone gave it to you. But there’s a far greater chance your dying of skin cancer all ready, or about to get hit by a bus… oh my GOD LOOK OUT! SCRREEEEECH!
Sicarius123
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 10:27 AMWait, the giganto radio telescope doesn’t effect them?
I could believe the rest of it, given people can be allergic to near anything and we seem to be de-evolving in tollerance to some things, but the giganto radio telescope not effecting them makes me think it’s all a bit of baloney and just a bunch of people with anxiety.
Gray
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 11:23 AM+1
also +1 for amusing Americans with stir crazy excuses for anxiety disorders
Nath
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 1:39 PMErr, radio telescopes are passive. They detect “radio” from distant space objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_telescope
So it’s not like they’re pumping the locals with RF.
That said, how can a person say they have “exposures” to RF? I mean, unless this chick was living in her faraday cage all the time (which is of dubious effect anyway), she would be “exposed”. It’s not like she has to walk passed a friend’s wifi router and start screaming – she’d be exposed all the time.
The Saint
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:30 PMOh the delusion.
Caesar Wong
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:31 PMIt seems that town would be a very good scientific test “lab” for the long term effects of radiation. Monitoring the health trends of people living there over a long period (10 years+) would provide a good set of data for comparative studies. Although I’m sure this has already been thought of.
Aaron
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:55 PMI’m tempted to spike their drinking water with a radioactive isotope just for shits and giggles.
The Saint
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 2:14 PMNo, what about all the other RF signals passing through them?…Not to mention the earths own EM field…
Aaron
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:53 PMI always love that the symptoms for these things are so vague and easily passed off as psychologically induced. When people believe they have something wrong with them it doesn’t take much for them to start feeling like they have something wrong with them.
Witness the mysterious fibres that grow on peoples skin and can’t be explained, or the unexplainable headaches suffered by a farmer living nearby a wind farm. Or the fact all these people seem to live in a America where delusion and paranoia seem like national pass times.