Shocking Assessment of EMF Risk: It's Not Watt It Amperes to Be

"Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house."

    -- James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times (1933)

In an apparent case of "right you are if think you are," the Telegraph reports on a new policy adopted by the UK's Health Protection Agency for those concerned over their exposure to electromagnetic radiation in their daily lives:

People who believe electricity makes them ill should be informed of ways to reduce their exposure to appliances such as computers and hairdryers, a senior government health adviser said yesterday.

Dr Jill Meara, of the Health Protection Agency, said that while there was no scientific evidence to show electrical sensitivity was real, those who thought they were sufferers should be advised to consider keeping their distance from electric devices.

(Italics added.)

The Telegraph's article quotes Professor John Adams of University College London, author of Risk, describing the new policy as another example of the modern ailment that he, in a fit of acronym-driven inspiration, refers to as Compulsive Risk Assessment Psychosis.   

Rod Read, Director of Electrosensitivity-UK, the leading British bastion of the campaign to "support those made ill by electromagnetic fields/RF/microwaves and [to] campaign for recognition of this illness [sic]," is none too pleased with that characterization, and has pronounced Professor Adams  a "bullying, browbeating ignoramus". 

On The Social Affairs Unit Weblog, the Professor has now posted an Open Letter responding to that trenchant critique and in particular to Mr. Read's claim that there are presently some 300,000 "government registered [electrosensitivity sufferers] in Sweden."  (See artist's rendering above right.)

Your question about the 300,000 government registered ES sufferers in Sweden provokes further questions.  Until your email I was not aware of their existence.  Google has been no help.  How does one register?  Are there financial incentives for those who register?  Are there certified ES specialists who register the sufferers?  How are they trained and certified? 300,000 makes it an extremely common affliction – one Swede in 30.  Why have I never met, or know anyone who has ever met, anyone with this common complaint?  Is there a similar number enjoying the therapeutic benefits of low-level electromagnetic fields in Sweden?

While assessing claims that electrosensitivity sufferers respond well to a treatment regimen involving jumping on trampolines -- "the risk to those following this advice of harm from a trampolining accident is likely to exceed the therapeutic benefit" -- Professor Adams offers this helpful hint to cut through counter Compulsive Risk Assessment Psychosis:

I do not doubt that many people enjoy the very real placebo effects that flow from their belief in the efficacy of therapeutic magnets, and that many suffer from very real physical effects that they attribute to their sensitivity to low-level electromagnetic fields.  I do doubt, on the available evidence, the physical causality attributed by the believers.

Adrift on a turbulent sea of scientific uncertainty, and confronted by millions of passionate believers on opposite sides of an argument, I look for a sheet anchor.  Mine is mainstream science.  It is not infallible.  Just less fallible than any alternative I know.

~~~

For further reading:  More from Professor Adams on risk, risk assessment, risk management, and fear of managing to assess risk, can be accessed through The Social Affairs Unit Risk Archives.  Particularly recommended, from March of this year: "Risk Management: it's not rocket science - it's much more complicated."

[Bird photo by sxn (Sorin Brinzei), via stock.xchng ; Dancing medieval Swedes from The Seventh Seal, Gunnar Fischer cinematographer.]