Allergic to the Internet! (Group Wants to Ban Wi-Fi in Public Buildings)

ON EDIT (to save you the trouble): Fine, an allergy is a specific immune response, whereas sound is an irritant. Try living alongside a highway for a few years and then tell us how well your body's doing, whether it's an immune response or not.

Cognitive and neurobiological alterations in electromagnetic hypersensitive patients: results of a case-control study.
Landgrebe M, Frick U, Hauser S, Langguth B, Rosner R, Hajak G, Eichhammer P.

Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.

BACKGROUND: Hypersensitivity to electromagnetic fields (EMF) is frequently claimed to be linked to a variety of non-specific somatic and neuropsychological complaints. Whereas provocation studies often failed to demonstrate a causal relationship between EMF exposure and symptom formation, recent studies point to a complex interplay of neurophysiological and cognitive alterations contributing to symptom manifestation in electromagnetic hypersensitive patients (EHS). However, these studies have examined only small sample sizes or have focused on selected aspects. Therefore this study examined in the largest sample of EHS EMF-specific cognitive correlates, discrimination ability and neurobiological parameters in order to get further insight into the pathophysiology of electromagnetic hypersensitivity.MethodIn a case-control design 89 EHS and 107 age- and gender-matched controls were included in the study. Health status and EMF-specific cognitions were evaluated using standardized questionnaires. Perception thresholds following single transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were determined using a standardized blinded measurement protocol. Cortical excitability parameters were measured by TMS. RESULTS: Discrimination ability was significantly reduced in EHS (only 40% of the EHS but 60% of the controls felt no sensation under sham stimulation during the complete series), whereas the perception thresholds for real magnetic pulses were comparable in both groups (median 21% versus 24% of maximum pulse intensity). Intra-cortical facilitation was decreased in younger and increased in older EHS. In addition, typical EMF-related cognitions (aspects of rumination, symptom intolerance, vulnerability and stabilizing self-esteem) specifically differentiated EHS from their controls. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate significant cognitive and neurobiological alterations pointing to a higher genuine individual vulnerability of electromagnetic hypersensitive patients.

PMID: 18366821

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: a systematic review of provocation studies.

Rubin GJ, Das Munshi J, Wessely S.

Mobile Phones Research Unit, Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry and Guy's, King's and St. Thomas' School of Medicine, King's College London, UK. g.rubin@iop.kcl.ac.uk

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to assess whether people who report hypersensitivity to weak electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are better at detecting EMF under blind or double-blind conditions than nonhypersensitive individuals, and to test whether they respond to the presence of EMF with increased symptom reporting. METHODS: An extensive systematic search was used to identify relevant blind or double-blind provocation studies. This involved searching numerous literature databases and conference proceedings, and examining the citations of reviews and included studies. The results of relevant studies were tabulated and metaanalyses were used to compare the proportions of "hypersensitive" and control participants able to discriminate active from sham EMF exposures. RESULTS: Thirty-one experiments testing 725 "electromagnetically hypersensitive" participants were identified. Twenty-four of these found no evidence to support the existence of a biophysical hypersensitivity, whereas 7 reported some supporting evidence. For 2 of these 7, the same research groups subsequently tried and failed to replicate their findings. In 3 more, the positive results appear to be statistical artefacts. The final 2 studies gave mutually incompatible results. Our metaanalyses found no evidence of an improved ability to detect EMF in "hypersensitive" participants. CONCLUSIONS: The symptoms described by "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" sufferers can be severe and are sometimes disabling. However, it has proved difficult to show under blind conditions that exposure to EMF can trigger these symptoms. This suggests that "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" is unrelated to the presence of EMF, although more research into this phenomenon is required.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15784787