BBC: 'Wi-fi refugees' shelter in West Virginia mountains

[pampango]

There are five billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and advances in wireless technology make it increasingly difficult to escape the influence of mobile devices. But while most Americans seem to embrace continuous connectivity, some believe it's making them physically ill.

Ms Schou is one of an estimated 5% of Americans who believe they suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), which they say is caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields typically created by cell phones, wi-fi and other electronic equipment. Her symptoms were so severe that she abandoned her family farm in the state of Iowa and moved to Green Bank, West Virginia - a tiny village of 143 residents in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains.

Green Bank is part of the US Radio Quiet Zone, where wireless is banned across 13,000 sq miles (33,000 sq km) to prevent transmissions interfering with a number of radio telescopes in the area.

And the World Health Organization, while acknowledging that the symptoms are genuine and can be severe, says: "EHS has no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMF (electromagnetic field) exposure. Further, EHS is not a medical diagnosis, nor is it clear that it represents a single medical problem."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14887428

[Prometheus Bound]

1. Interesting. I'd like to sit inside a Faraday cage one day and see if I feel any different.

[Kolesar]

4. Aluminum siding and aluminum "Venetian" blinds would accomplish a lot of that...eom

[AngryAmish]

9. A hat with aluminum foil inside should suffice.

[One_Life_To_Give]

21. Never noticed a difference

I have an 80dB chamber at work and can't say I have ever noticed a difference when inside. Nor have I heard anything from colleagues or people at the local EMC lab where there are 3 anechoic chambers. Nor have I heard anyone notice any such changes among the IEEE EMC society etc.

I suspect the gov't has done a better job of saturating unsuspecting subjects with non-ionizing radiation in the name of national defense. Than the private sector could hope to do in ten lifetimes.

[TheDebbieDee]

2. I had no idea that there was a Radio Quiet Zone..........

This is a great thing to know in case I'm ever a contestant on Jeopardy, or, whatever. Thank you for sharing this

[petronius]

14. I didn't either - interesting trivia

Just hope we don't end up on Jeopardy at the same time... :)

[TheDebbieDee]

23. I'll mop the floor with you! ; )

[NNN0LHI]

15. It was established in 1958

http://www.gb.nrao.edu/nrqz/

[snooper2]

19. Bet you also didn't know we still have a strategic Helium Reserve from WWI

:P

Got to keep those blimps going :P




http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/energy/helium/federal_helium_program.html

[krispos42]

26. That actually could be worth tons of cash one day.

We're running out of helium. It's produced by the decay of radioactive elements, which is why we have to drill for it, to tap into a reservoir of helium created over the course of millions of years by the spontanious fission of, say, uranium.

And we're running out. The natural process takes millions of years to make it, and we can only make it on earth via atomic bombs (fusion bombs). And helium is a critical compound for ultra-low-temperature cooling of materials, like in supercomputers and superconductor research.

The more we use for blimps and dirigibles, the less we have for that kind of cutting edge applications. So one day... that's stuff is going to be worth a fortune!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Shades of Johnny mnemonic.... didn't know. n/t

[Gman]

5. Many of them also wear the tinfoil hats to protect from cosmic rays

Literally. That's where the expression came from.

[hobbit709]

6. did you see that one where the design of most of the tinfoil hats

actually gives a 2 db gain inside the hat at the frequencies they're freaked out over.

[Gman]

10. Lol!

[WinkyDink]

12. World Health Organization, while acknowledging that the symptoms are genuine and can be severe

[trotsky]

24. Yep, the symptoms are there.

Doesn't mean EMF causes them, now does it?

[marions ghost]

7. interesting

I've often wondered if electromagnetic radiation is greater in urban areas where you have a lot of Wi-Fi zones overlapping? How much would be a maximal exposure?

I know nobody will answer that question.

We are the guinea pigs in this worldwide experiment.

[ThomWV]

8. I go down there two or three times a year, you are given much warning not to use radios

Every road in the silent area has signs on it telling you not to use radios of any sort, not CB radios, not HAM radios, and in fact I've always made sure my cell phone was off when I was down that way. It is a beautiful area too, it being the second least populated area of this state.

In a larger picture, West Virginia is a much misunderstood state and a very beautiful place. It is, however, not an easy place for a person to live well unless he is willing to rape the land. The up side is that once you come to understand your place in the greater world and how to co-exist with nature its a wonderful place to live. In fact I have lived all up and down the east (southern Florida to northern Ohio) and a few places in the west as well (California, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Texas) and of all the places I've lived West Virginia is by far the best.

[WinkyDink]

11. I have NO DOUBT this condition exists. We ARE "The Body Electirc"; hence, EKG's; EEG's; etc.

[Lance_Boyle]

16. Start doubting. It has never been found in any controlled study.

Wackjobs who claim to have the sensitivity have repeatedly shown no ability to determine whether an RF-emitting device was turned on or off based on their "symptoms." The "phenomenon" is entirely psychosomatic, and a number of whiny attention seekers have glommed onto it seeking their 15 minutes.

[nomb]

13. I go there all the time. See y'all at the Purple Fiddle just down the road there.

But I thought cell phones didn't work there because no one lives there.

[snooper2]

17. ROFL

:rofl:

Yo Boss, I need a couple days off work. All this wireless gear in the lab is giving me a tummy ache :rofl:

[Romulox]

18. That's all well and fine, but what about those after my *precious bodily fluids*?

This doesn't help with that at all!

[Lucian]

20. I wonder what the long-term effects of EMFs will be.

We're constantly bombarded with WiFi's, cell phone radiation, satellite frequencies...I wonder if this will have any long-term effects on the cellular level in the body. And by long-term effects, I mean things like cancer, rapid mutations, etc.

[NYC Liberal]

22. Wireless is not 'banned' there; there is simply an additional approval process

for radio transmitters (to make sure they don't interfere with telescopes, as the article says): http://www.gb.nrao.edu/nrqz/

[exelwood]

25. I prefer the anti-chemical disability...

...I need my electric toys! The chemical allergy thing was popular a few years ago and people were getting disability for it! There was a news show on TV with all these people living in little white houses wearing nothing but white cotton, they looked like cult people but were getting a lot of attention. They couldn't be around chemicals of any kind and were getting doctors to give them disability waivers. I don't know what ever happened to that industrial illness, you don't hear much about it anymore.