Teschler on Topic

5G phobia

I once corresponded with an individual who thought WiFi signals were making him sick. The term describing his ailment is electrohypersensitivity (EHS), a belief that you are allergic to minute electromagnetic fields.

EHS isn’t a recognized medical condition. The World Health Organization reports that numerous studies of individuals claiming problems from EHS have shown that their symptoms weren’t correlated with exposure to electromagnetic radiation. The WHO also says studies reveal EHS sufferers are no better at detecting EM radiation than the average person on the street.

These results have led clinicians to suggest that belief in EHS follows a vicious cycle: Sufferers experience medical symptoms with no discernible cause, start to perceive relatively normal sensations as being intense and disturbing, then misattribute their symptoms to EM waves, perhaps because of media coverage. Gullible media reports reinforce these beliefs and further freak-out sufferers.

Clinical psychologists have proposed treating EHS as an anxiety disorder stemming from a phobia, not much different than being afraid of the dark or lightning. Basically, they say electrophobics interpret symptoms of anxiety as the biological effects of EM radiation. Lending credence to this idea is the fact that those suffering from anxiety can have the same physical manifestations as those who think they have EHS: irregular heartbeats, muscle aches and tension, trembling, headaches, insomnia, and so forth.

EHS as a phobia also explains why the purchase of so-called antiradiation devices brings some relief to EHS sufferers: They reduce the sufferer’s stress levels rather than do much about EM waves.

Therapy to treat phobia generally consists of gradually and repeatedly exposing phobic people to the object of the phobia--first in their imagination, then in real life—while teaching relaxation methods.

Unfortunately cases of EHS phobias have grown in recent years. To help stem the tide, clinicians have suggested educating people on how to identify false information about the effects of EM radiation.

Well, good luck with that. We swim in a sea of false information about EM radiation, and the waters have been rising quickly when it comes to misleading claims about radiation at 5G frequencies. One problem: Some studies purporting to show harm from EM radiation suffer from subtle procedural flaws that make their results questionable. And the flaws are only evident to those familiar with how clinical studies can go awry.

A case in point is a study published two years ago claiming cell-phone use caused cancer. The study used case-control research. A case-control study looks back in time to find the relative risk between a specific exposure (the classic example is second-hand tobacco smoke) and an outcome (cancer). A control group of people who don’t have the disease or didn’t experience the event serves as a comparison.

Problem: The subjects in the cell phone study self-selected themselves to participate, and they relied on their memory of cell phone use. These are big no-no’s. Text book introductions of case-control design warn against selection and recall biases, both of which are in play when patients participate in a study they know in advance pertains to whether their past has affected their present illness.

A better source of insights about cell phones and brain cancer comes from a plot of brain cancer cases (from National Institutes of Health) and cell phone subscriptions (from World Bank Statistics). It reveals that though cell phone use has risen dramatically since 1992, there’s been no corresponding rise in illnesses such as brain cancer.

But my own experience is that trying to explain such facts to someone dead-certain radio waves are making them ill is pretty much hopeless. DW

Leland Teschler • Executive Editor lteschler@wtwhmedia.com