May 18, 2022 06:54 AM
(This post was last modified: May 18, 2022 06:15 PM by C C.)
And you thought the character of Chuck McGill in Better Call Saul -- with respect to his "illness" -- couldn't possibly correspond to a real, educated practictioner of any respected profession.
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https://www.theverge.com/23071138/ehs-se...protection
EXCERPTS: . . . It’s advertised as a way to block electromagnetic fields, though with no clear or proven explanation of how or why. It costs over $200, but you can buy a bigger one for over $350.
But David Fancy, who believes he’s sensitive to electromagnetic fields, says it’s the only thing — other than moving into a tent on a friend’s woodlot in Ontario, Canada — that helped the blinding headaches, full-body nerve pain, and brain fog he says he’d been experiencing since 2001.
And he’s tried a lot of different products: he says he spent about $2,500 on cell phone stickers, handheld so-called energy shields, and other devices advertised as ways to make him feel better. “My experience has been that 90 percent of these devices don’t work,” he says.
But the chance they might have was enough for him to spend the money. Fancy, a professor at Brock University’s dramatic arts department in Ontario, has very real symptoms that he attributes to a controversial condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).
EHS ascribes symptoms ranging from dizziness to headaches or pain to the waves coming off of devices like cell phones or microwaves. In the US, it’s considered a fringe health theory, and the reasons for its symptoms are hotly debated among doctors and scientists. Numerous peer-reviewed studies found no scientific link between exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and illness, though many studies say further research needs to be done to understand people’s symptoms.
Because of his condition, Fancy is an easy target for companies selling products that claim to protect against low-frequency radiation. Others who believe they have EHS are targeted as well.
And, being largely isolated by and skeptical of the mainstream medical community, they’re particularly susceptible to the marketing, says Fancy. “They are desperate, and they are very prone to spending the remaining money that they have on some kind of shortcut device that’s allegedly going to help them.”
This has only escalated over the past few years, experts say. Both the pandemic and the growing prominence of health misinformation and conspiracies online have created the perfect environment for snake-oil salesmen to thrive, tapping into distrust in and legitimate concerns about the healthcare industry and offering expensive, useless devices as a solution.
[...] “Snake oil” products claiming to protect humans from radio waves became common as fears of radiofrequency radiation grew throughout the 20th century. The rise of radios, microwaves, and cell phones each triggered a new wave of fears about radiofrequency radiation.
People often confuse non-ionizing radiation — the low-frequency radiation that comes from our cell phones or home appliances that cannot damage DNA or cells directly — with ionizing radiation like X-rays that can be potentially harmful to humans, he says.
As early as the 1970s and ‘80s, experimental studies on radiation were a big business, says Charles Stevens, a neuroscientist who chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee on radiation risk. There was plenty of government and private funding available for research on electromagnetic radiation, and the studies conducted with that funding were not always accurate, he says. Others were then able to use those flawed studies to back products that claimed to offer protection... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - -
https://www.theverge.com/23071138/ehs-se...protection
EXCERPTS: . . . It’s advertised as a way to block electromagnetic fields, though with no clear or proven explanation of how or why. It costs over $200, but you can buy a bigger one for over $350.
But David Fancy, who believes he’s sensitive to electromagnetic fields, says it’s the only thing — other than moving into a tent on a friend’s woodlot in Ontario, Canada — that helped the blinding headaches, full-body nerve pain, and brain fog he says he’d been experiencing since 2001.
And he’s tried a lot of different products: he says he spent about $2,500 on cell phone stickers, handheld so-called energy shields, and other devices advertised as ways to make him feel better. “My experience has been that 90 percent of these devices don’t work,” he says.
But the chance they might have was enough for him to spend the money. Fancy, a professor at Brock University’s dramatic arts department in Ontario, has very real symptoms that he attributes to a controversial condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).
EHS ascribes symptoms ranging from dizziness to headaches or pain to the waves coming off of devices like cell phones or microwaves. In the US, it’s considered a fringe health theory, and the reasons for its symptoms are hotly debated among doctors and scientists. Numerous peer-reviewed studies found no scientific link between exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and illness, though many studies say further research needs to be done to understand people’s symptoms.
Because of his condition, Fancy is an easy target for companies selling products that claim to protect against low-frequency radiation. Others who believe they have EHS are targeted as well.
And, being largely isolated by and skeptical of the mainstream medical community, they’re particularly susceptible to the marketing, says Fancy. “They are desperate, and they are very prone to spending the remaining money that they have on some kind of shortcut device that’s allegedly going to help them.”
This has only escalated over the past few years, experts say. Both the pandemic and the growing prominence of health misinformation and conspiracies online have created the perfect environment for snake-oil salesmen to thrive, tapping into distrust in and legitimate concerns about the healthcare industry and offering expensive, useless devices as a solution.
[...] “Snake oil” products claiming to protect humans from radio waves became common as fears of radiofrequency radiation grew throughout the 20th century. The rise of radios, microwaves, and cell phones each triggered a new wave of fears about radiofrequency radiation.
People often confuse non-ionizing radiation — the low-frequency radiation that comes from our cell phones or home appliances that cannot damage DNA or cells directly — with ionizing radiation like X-rays that can be potentially harmful to humans, he says.
As early as the 1970s and ‘80s, experimental studies on radiation were a big business, says Charles Stevens, a neuroscientist who chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee on radiation risk. There was plenty of government and private funding available for research on electromagnetic radiation, and the studies conducted with that funding were not always accurate, he says. Others were then able to use those flawed studies to back products that claimed to offer protection... (MORE - missing details)
![[Image: 281546831_1527667724336770_4522848216235...e=628A00B1]](https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/281546831_1527667724336770_4522848216235207998_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-6&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=lOR9reaDdz0AX-ZiRYS&_nc_ht=scontent-sea1-1.xx&oh=00_AT8PuwLmSS3LxDg1DciJ2fig2bQp3kSDYomGS_XoIAA8GA&oe=628A00B1)