Studies disproving EHS were done over the years with a lack of understanding of EHS and EMF which resulted in creating a misleading consensus about EHS. This old consensus about EHS (2019) is that there is no known cause of EHS and to its symptoms. This consensus, which serves the industry’s need to convince the public that EMF exposure at sub-termal levels is safe, is based on several provocation studies that are problematic and misleading.
These studies seem to have shown that people who claim to be EHS can’t tell when an EMF source is on or off.
These studies usually suffer from logical problems that originated from the misunderstanding of EHS or EMF. Following the basic problems in these studies:
- Most of these studies were done by psychologists or psychiatrists who don’t understand EHS or EMF radiation.
- In some cases, the subjects were exposed to several types of EMF even in the sham exposure that should have been EMF free.
- EHS subjects were exposed to several different types of EMR in the experiment, without taking into consideration that some EHS people are sensitive to only some parts of the electromagnetic spectrum or radiation type, and can’t detect all the type of Electromagnetic radiation.
- In some studies, EHS persons were exposed several times, one after the other, without giving them enough time to recover between each exposure.
- The researchers mistakenly believe that EHS people are like real-time EMF meters, reacting very shortly after the appearance of a new type of EMF (sometimes added), and fully recovering shortly after it is discontinued (ready to react to new exposure). While in reality, most EHS people will react after a delay and will recover only after a much longer delay. In these studies, the recovery time is usually too short (7-15 minutes) and there are several exposure cycles one after another causing the EHS subject not to fully recover after one or several cycles (the chances of a full recovery are less as the cycle continues).
Following are several key studies as such:
The Essex study
A good example of these bad studies is the ESSEX study which has the following flows:
- 56 EHS people, and 120 “control people” took part in this study as subjects.
- The study tested if EHS people can detect GSM and UTMS signals.
- In the first test cycle, EHS people were exposed for 5 minutes, had 2 minutes (too short) to recover, and then were exposed again each time to the different RF signals (GSM, UMTS or sham exposure). In the second, third, and fourth cycles, they were exposed for 50 minutes, had one week off, and then again (to GSM, UMTS, or sham exposure).
- Only participants, who made it to the end of the 6 tests, were included in the outcomes of the study. All 12 EHS people who withdrew did it because of symptoms, their outcomes were omitted.
More about the Essex study at http://www.mast-victims.org/resources/docs/essex-study-phillip-watts.pdf
Official Outcomes of the study showed the EHS people guessed that the source was ON (UTMS and GSM combined – and this is a mistake because not all EHS people reacts the same to UMTS and GSM) in 66% in the short exposure cycles and 69% in the long exposure cycles (better than the control group guessing percentage).
The Essex study results:
http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/EHS/pages/on_off_judgements_breakdown.htm
The abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18007992
The full study:
http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/EHS/ELTITI%20et%20al_2007b_ON-LINE%20PUBLICATION.pdf
A review of the study by powerwathc.org.uk site: http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20080201_ehp_journal_response.asp
Criticism of the study by Stelios A. Zinelis:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235207/?tool=pubmed
Testimony of one of the subjects in the study:
http://www.mast-victims.org/resources/docs/essex-study-phillip-watts.pdf
Dr. James Rubin Studies
Dr. James Rubin is a psychologist who had done a series of studies on Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS). In his studies, he concludes that EHS is a psychological condition. These studies were published as proof that EHS is not real. Dr. James Rubin was promoted and continues to study EHS. Dr. James Rubin and his Prof. Simon Wessely fail to understand EHS and EMR. Their basic understanding is that each and every EHS person can identify the exact type of EMR that the subject is being exposed to, right away. Their studies have the following errors:
- The device used to radiate the subjects is a cell phone like device that emits different types of EMR even in the “idle” mode, exposing the subjects to EMR even in the sham exposure.
- The rooms where the subjects are placed in were not EMR shielded.
Please see my reviews of his studies:
- http://norad4u.blogspot.co.il/2017/02/rubins-study-on-electromagnetic-hyper.html
- http://norad4u.blogspot.co.il/2017/02/phd-james-rubins-study-on-ehs-hurt-ehs.html
- http://norad4u.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/why-dr-james-robin-ehs-study-is.html
These 2 issues alone should be enough to discredit the study. More issues on this study are presented in page 4-5 of this report – http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/library/downloads/es-8-appendices-2014-10.pdf (might need to log in) and in this article http://andrewamarino.com/blog/?p=289
The study – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1440612/
2016 EHS exposure study
“Effects of personalized exposure on self-rated electromagnetic hypersensitivity and sensibility – A double-blind randomized controlled trial” – https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2016.11.031“
This study was aimed to correct some of the problematic issues in older EHS exposure study. The 2 issues that the study tried to face was:
- Type of exposure – exposing EHS people to the type of Radiation they react to.
- Test environment – conducting the tests in the low EMF environment that the subjects chose.
However this study was not problem-free. Even in the 2 issues that the study tried to face and correct, the way it was done was problematic. Following are the key issues in this study that are wrong:
- No Physical measurements were done to the subjects during the exposure. The subjects were simply asked if they can feel the radiation or not.
- Not enough recovery time.
- The wrong estimation that EHS people can sense the radiation right away and every time
- Exposure type was determined with no real tests( just by….asking)
- Radiation levels in the test environments were not measured
- Suspicion for the unbalanced approach, expecting the subject to fail
My full review of this study – http://norad4u.blogspot.co.il/2017/07/detailed-review-of-2016-ehs-exposure.html
The full study – http://www.sciencedirect.com.sci-hub.cc/science/article/pii/S016041201630931X
This study showed that EHS people have more Psychological symptoms and other health issues and effects compared to people who did not define themselves as EHS. At the end of this study abstract, there is an assumption of the writers (who are from the Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Sweden) that ” The results suggest that IEI-EMF is associated with various types of psychological symptoms and with poor HRQoL
“.” associated ” not caused, However, some people will interpret that as “EHS is caused by Psychological issues”. This is, of course, a mistake. The Psychological Symptoms of EHS people are usually caused by a post-trauma from the physical pain, the lack of hope and understanding of “what is going on with my body”, by the misunderstanding of the condition by others and medical professionals. Usually, in the first stages of EHS, the person is heavily affected by all the above and unaware of the cause. Without any understanding of the cause and not sing of improvement or hope the post-trauma is created. As the factors I have noted continue to have an influence, the post-trauma will get bigger and bigger. EHS people can be post-traumatic, but they usually do not become EHS because they are post-traumatic.
Link – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399916300423?via%3Dihub
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2016.03.006