Electro hypersensitivity, or EHS, in medical literature is an idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF). "Idiopathic" refers to the fact that the actual case is unidentified. The World Health Organization does acknowledge EHS. WHO estimates that EHS affects a few individuals per million, and, drawing on data from self-help groups - states that about 10 percent of cases are deemed severe. But WHO says EHS "has no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMF exposure."
Those who suffer from acute symptoms would beg to differ. There are support groups across the world and communities of electromagnetism refugees gathering in places like Green Bank, West Virginia - a town where most forms of electromagnetic radiation are banned. EHS activists cite the work of scientists like Andrew Marino, who, in a case report published in a 2011 edition of the International Journal of Neuroscience, used double blind tests to show that EHS "can occur as a bona fide environmentally inducible neurological syndrome."
We talk with Dafna Tachover, featured in a Time Magazine documentary film called "Searching for the Golden Cage," about her experience with the extreme physical symptoms brought on by electromagnetic fields.
Weird things continued to happen. For example, I was on one side of the bed in my apartment and I would get this really sharp pain in my head. When I moved to the other side, it stopped. I noticed there was an electric socket there and I asked the maintenance guy to disconnect its electricity. I didn't really want to use the computer so it was difficult for me to research what was going on.
I contacted a neurologist, and even though I'm very independent I took my husband so they wouldn't disregard me. The doctor said, You know I have never heard of anything like this before. If I couldn't see you I might think that you have some sort of mental issue, but you seem sane. I took two tests - an EEG, which detects electrical activity in the brain, and an EMG, which sees how your nerves respond to electric currents.
dizziness
nausea
heart palpitations
redness, tingling, or burning sensations on the skin
No, because there is nothing wrong with my body unless it's exposed to wireless. When I live in a radiation-free environment I do not have symptoms. My heart is fine and my nervous system is fine.
I hoped it was a bad dream, that I'd wake up and the symptoms would have vanished. But it got worse and worse. In the end, I called a family doctor my husband knew in Manhattan. The secretary said I have electro-sensitivity and gave me names of two websites.
I couldn't use the computer so I waited for my husband to come home and on these websites we saw they sell pendants to protect you and we started laughing. We were like, Oh my God, we are in deep shit! These websites are selling all this, which means there are people suffering and nobody can do anything for them they are so desperate. And whoever wrote the science sections on these sites really didn't know what they were talking about. So, that was how I got introduced to electro-sensitivity. Then a friend told me about an article in Prevention magazine all about how electromagnetic fields make people ill.
I couldn't sleep. The pain was intolerable - I couldn't think properly. I went for a month without any sleep. Someone wrote me that there's a place in Green Bank, West Virginia, where nobody is allowed to use wireless signals. I contacted her and she said I should go stay. I drove nine hours there that same day. But I felt really ill in her house because I was so sick at the time I was reacting to any electricity, not just wireless.
Soon after I got there I met a very intelligent pilot from California who had gone there with his mother because he was so ill. These were my first encounters with other people like me. I put a tent out on her porch and I was flooded with clarity. It was freezing cold, but it was like my head was finally quiet. I had the cry of my life.
Yes, but it is a theory. Something in the first computer caused the appearance of the symptoms. I think something was defective and probably created a strong electromagnetic shock to my body. It may be that the accumulated use of wireless technology and the fact that at the time I was sleeping three feet from a circuit breaker weakened my body, and then that laptop may have been the "last straw." I will never know the definitive answer to this.
WASHINGTONIAN:
The Town with No Wi-Fi
THE GUARDIAN:
Electrosensitivity - is technology killing us?
TEEN VOGUE:
Teen girl dies from Wi-Fi allergy