11/07/2023
Is electromagnetic hypersensitivity real? Depends who you ask — WHYY
For years, sufferers of EHS have maintained that the electromagnetic fields around us are dangerous. A handful of scientists agree.
Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, and especially so in recent years. They’re produced by power lines, cellphone towers, Wi-Fi — and soon by 5G.
To most of us, those fields are undetectable. But a small number of people believe they have an actual allergy to electromagnetic fields — as, for example, one of the main characters in the show “Better Call Saul” does. The character’s name is Chuck, and he’s convinced he has a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).
“For reasons unknown, my nervous system has become sensitized to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation,” Chuck tells his doctor after a spell that puts him in the hospital. “Electronic devices create their own electromagnetic fields. The closer I am to such devices, the worse the symptoms.”
It’s clear in the show that the symptoms are real and debilitating — but it’s also clear that they’re mostly in Chuck’s head. EHS, the show implies, is simply a manifestation of Chuck’s mental illness.
Living with EHS
It was in 2016 that Reza Ganjavi — an IT professional who hails from California, but currently lives in Zurich — first started noticing symptoms.
“The most important symptom was the lack of good sleep,” Ganjavi said.
On top of the insomnia were headaches, fatigue, a “restless mind” — and one more strange symptom.
“I noticed that I had more wrinkles,” Ganjavi said. “I was getting older, quicker.”
For Ganjavi — a self-described “yogi,” who eats an organic, vegetarian diet, and eschews smoking and drugs — it was a concerning development. So he started hunting around for a cause; something, anything, that had changed in his environment over the past few weeks.
“It didn’t click until one day I was using my laptop and I noticed that there was a Wi-Fi connection that I didn’t recognize,” Ganjavi said.
After a bit of investigation, he figured out the source — a new Wi-Fi router that his landlord had installed a few meters outside his front door. The discovery prompted Ganjavi to start researching potential connections between routers and health effects. Pretty soon, he came across something he’d never heard of before: electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).
For Ganjavi, an IT professional, the idea that his Wi-Fi could be making him sick wasn’t a welcome one.
“I was really, really hoping that this was not it,” he said. “The more research I did, the more troubling it became.”
By “it,” Ganjavi means electromagnetic fields, also known as EMF or electromagnetic radiation.
Electromagnetic fields are all around us. There are natural ones — produced by the earth, the sun, even our own bodies — and others generated by power lines, wireless devices, cellphone towers, TV and radio broadcasts, and more.
Mainstream science has affirmed for years that these human-made electromagnetic fields are safe, at least in the frequencies and dosages that most people encounter them. But people with EHS believe that these fields not only aren’t inherently safe, they’re fundamentally dangerous, and that people with EHS just happen to be more sensitive to their effects.
“This is not a sickness — I am not sick,” Ganjavi said. “I am just a normal, sensitive human who is hurt by a very, very damaging radiation.”
It wasn’t long before Ganjavi was a full-on convert to the cause. He started a website called EMF Crisis, wrote petitions and letters, became known as an anti-5G activist — and, along the way, he changed the way he lived.
“So at home, I have completely wired internet,” Ganjavi said. “Even for my cellphone. I have internet on my phone with no radiation.”
His next project is installing a “shielding blanket” on the floor of his apartment — basically a large piece of material that’s been woven with copper and other metals to block electromagnetic fields — to prevent radiation coming from downstairs.
These days, Ganjavi said, he’s gotten his home close to zero radiation. And he can tell the difference when he goes outside.
“When I go to a big city, or any city these days where they have a lot of cell towers, or if I’m in a place where there’s Wi-Fi and I’m close to the Wi-Fi router, I have all kinds of symptoms,” he said. “I get disoriented; I get dizzy; I get headaches, heavy headaches, and so on. It’s a terrible thing. It’s almost debilitating.”
But over the years, Ganjavi has found workarounds. When he has to travel for work, he stays in Airbnbs instead of hotels, so he can unplug the router. He also carries a radiation detector with him, to zero in on the best and worst places for him to set up camp. On planes and trains, he brings shielding blankets for protection.
“I basically wrap myself up like a burrito,” he said. “Or I had a shirt and pants made out of this material, so I can wear it. And basically, the radiation just bounces off it.”
But Ganjavi said it isn’t just people with EHS who are vulnerable to electromagnetic fields.
“It’s very important to emphasize that it hurts everybody,” he said. “Some people feel it like me, but it hurts everybody.”
Ganjavi said there are thousands of studies documenting a litany of harmful effects caused by electromagnetic fields — including tumors, DNA damage, reproductive harm, memory impact, autism, headaches, disorientation, insomnia, thinning of the blood-brain barrier, dizziness, fatigue, cardiac arrest, cognitive decline, s***m damage, oxidative stress, a variety of cancers, brain damage, hearing damage, depression, anxiety, birth defects, heart disease, behavioral issues, and more.
“These have all been researched and observed through studies that were not paid for by [the telecom] industry,” Ganjavi said. “If you look at the industry studies, the majority of them say, ‘Oh, it’s completely safe.’ But that was the case with to***co. So actually we have a replay of to***co.”
Science vs. science
But not all scientists agree. Among them is Joel Moskowitz, a longtime public health researcher who teaches at University of California Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
Moskowitz first got interested in what he calls radiofrequency radiation — the name for harmful electromagnetic fields — back in 2009, when he was part of a team that found a potential link between mobile phone use and tumor risk.
“When that went public, I began to hear from people all over the country who were suffering various illnesses related to electromagnetic fields,” Moskowitz said, “essentially begging me to keep working on this area, because there was virtually no one in the U.S. within academic institutions that was addressing these issues.”
Moskowitz was skeptical at first, both about electromagnetic fields’ potential for harm, and specifically about EHS.
“But in talking to many of these people who were contacting me, I became pretty convinced that it wasn’t just psychosomatic, what they were experiencing,” he said.
Moskowitz found their stories compelling. But more than those stories, he said, it was the research that convinced him — thousands of studies showing biological harm caused by electromagnetic radiation.
“The broad categories are increased tumor risk from long-term exposure, increased risk of reproductive harm in both males and females, neurologic effects, particularly in children, neurologic and cognitive effects, and electromagnetic hypersensitivity,” Moskowitz said.
Though it was technically outside his scientific wheelhouse, Moskowitz became interested enough that he launched his own website, SaferEMR.com, which contains links to more than 1,000 scientific papers on the topic.
Moskowitz said there are a significant number of scientists who are concerned about electromagnetic fields — though he admits their concerns aren’t exactly mainstream.
BY Joel Moskowitz (University of California
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