• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Cell Phone Allergy?

Chris Haynes

Perfectly Poisonous Person
Chris Haynes
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
4,432
Location
Wacky Washington Way Out West
Okay, I have a garden and I belong to a special interest garden group. My teeny tiny garden will be a small garden tour, so my phone number and address were published in the newsletter.

I just got a call today from someone who wants to come, but she claimed she had a cell phone allergy and could I ask everyone to turn off their cell phones. What in the realm of the flying spaghetti monster was that all about?

I did not say I would, but I tried to warn her about the radio waves in my area. I live between two large hospitals, near the university and a few blocks from a helicopter pad (which is used because the folks who live in the posh neighborhood by the Children's Hospital don't like helicopters flying around their houses, so they fly over my neighborhood!) --- so I have issues with using things requiring radio waves. Things like cordless phones, baby monitors, computer wifi (which does better in error checking, but sometimes a laptop will be shut out of our home system, and either or both the laptop and the network need to be restarted), and remotes based on radio signals (have a long ugly story about that and Dish Networks DVR).

I am hoping I scared her away.

I looked up "cell phone allergy" and I mostly got links to the reaction of nickel (which is a real allergy), but very little on the radio wave stuff.

Does anyone know about this type of "allergy"?
 
Oh you've never encountered Roger Coghill etc...

http://www.cogreslab.co.uk/

There are a lot of people who claim to experience symptoms in the presence of mobile phones/wi fi etc, but blind tests have shown they can't tell the difference.

There was a quite hilarious article on Bad Science criticising his "study" showing links between mobile phone masts and the Bridgend suicide cluster and he appeared in the comments.
 
Last edited:
I suspect it may have been tongue-in-cheek. If not, perhaps you can introduce her to what a double-blind test is.
 
Hydrogen Cyanide said:
Okay, I have a garden and I belong to a special interest garden group. My teeny tiny garden will be a small garden tour, so my phone number and address were published in the newsletter.

I just got a call today from someone who wants to come, but she claimed she had a cell phone allergy and could I ask everyone to turn off their cell phones. What in the realm of the flying spaghetti monster was that all about?

I did not say I would, but I tried to warn her about the radio waves in my area. I live between two large hospitals, near the university and a few blocks from a helicopter pad (which is used because the folks who live in the posh neighborhood by the Children's Hospital don't like helicopters flying around their houses, so they fly over my neighborhood!) --- so I have issues with using things requiring radio waves. Things like cordless phones, baby monitors, computer wifi (which does better in error checking, but sometimes a laptop will be shut out of our home system, and either or both the laptop and the network need to be restarted), and remotes based on radio signals (have a long ugly story about that and Dish Networks DVR).

I am hoping I scared her away.

I looked up "cell phone allergy" and I mostly got links to the reaction of nickel (which is a real allergy), but very little on the radio wave stuff.

Does anyone know about this type of "allergy"?
Click to expand...

Probably an example of "[Idiopathic Environmental Illness aka (a variant of) Multiple Chemical Sensitivity]," which has different causes, most of which are mental problems, some of which are genuine allergies or sensitivities.

Impossible to say with limited information.
 
In double blind tests, the people who claim all day that they can tell by their headache if you have a cell phone turned on in your pocket... guess what? Ok, you probably guessed right. They can't.

And then there was the hillarious story about some people in Germany complaining about their allergies to a new cell netwok mast. To which the Telekom commented that they have all sympathy and can only imagine how bad it'll get when they actually turn it on.

That said, as a side-note, I fail to see how that could possibly be an allergy. Allergies are what happens when one's immune system reacts to some mollecule. But that's the key there: a synthetised protein must get a match on the allergen mollecule, to actually have a reaction. Allergy to radio waves is just about as silly as saying that salt reacts with the microwaves. Actually, no, it's sillier.
 
I got to call Bravo Sierra on this one. If you really were allergic to EMW in the cell phone's carrier wave frequency, you would have symtoms all of the time, as we are pretty much flooded with EMW of all different frequencies all the time.

She probably heard some information about how cell phones are bad for you, and concluded her own allergies were caused by them. I forget the term....when you think yourself sick? This is probably the case.
 
HansMustermann said:
That said, as a side-note, I fail to see how that could possibly be an allergy. Allergies are what happens when one's immune system reacts to some mollecule. But that's the key there: a synthetised protein must get a match on the allergen mollecule, to actually have a reaction. Allergy to radio waves is just about as silly as saying that salt reacts with the microwaves. Actually, no, it's sillier.
Click to expand...
You might quite sensibly be tempted to think that, but the power of woo is mightier than your pathetic rationality. You haven't thought about it in terms of 'vibrations' and 'energy'. Everything has a 'frequency' - sugar pills, pollen, cancer, your overall state of wellness. Homeopathy works by potentizing the water with the vibrations of whatever the active ingredient are which then correct your vibrating energy matrix. It thereby deals with the root cause of your illness rather than the physical manifestation of the negative vibe.

All 'unnatural' sources of electromagnetic vibrations (the information content, not the carrier frequency silly!) can impose their signature on your energy matrix as well. If this signature happens to be the same as cancer, or a headache, or hayfever... you get cancer or a headache or hayfever. Some peoples energy matrix happens to be more sensitive to particular types of negative vibrational energy. If you're sensitive to the vibrational frequency of grass pollen, you're allergic, if it's mobile phones, or electric blankets you've got Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. It's the same thing, man! It's all connected!... it's just that Nokia are suppressing the truth.
 
HansMustermann said:
'And then there was the hillarious story about some people in Germany complaining about their allergies to a new cell netwok mast. To which the Telekom commented that they have all sympathy and can only imagine how bad it'll get when they actually turn it on.
....
Click to expand...

Very funny!

Macgyver1968 said:
...She probably heard some information about how cell phones are bad for you, and concluded her own allergies were caused by them. I forget the term....when you think yourself sick? This is probably the case.
Click to expand...

Look at the tags to this post.

Professor Yaffle said:
Oh you've never encountered Roger Coghill etc...
...
There are a lot of people who claim to experience symptoms in the presence of mobile phones/wi fi etc, but blind tests have shown they can't tell the difference.....
Click to expand...

No I haven't. I'll have to look for the Bad Science link. By the way, now that I am reminded there was an episode on Skeptoid:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4117

alfaniner said:
I suspect it may have been tongue-in-cheek. If not, perhaps you can introduce her to what a double-blind test is.
Click to expand...

No, she was serious.

blutoski said:
Probably an example of "[Idiopathic Environmental Illness aka (a variant of) Multiple Chemical Sensitivity]," which has different causes, most of which are mental problems, some of which are genuine allergies or sensitivities.....
Click to expand...

There was a reason why I made sure to tell her about all the ambient radio signals in my area.

Thanks all!
 
shuttlt said:
You might quite sensibly be tempted to think that, but the power of woo is mightier than your pathetic rationality. You haven't thought about it in terms of 'vibrations' and 'energy'. Everything has a 'frequency' - sugar pills, pollen, cancer, your overall state of wellness. Homeopathy works by potentizing the water with the vibrations of whatever the active ingredient are which then correct your vibrating energy matrix. It thereby deals with the root cause of your illness rather than the physical manifestation of the negative vibe.

All 'unnatural' sources of electromagnetic vibrations (the information content, not the carrier frequency silly!) can impose their signature on your energy matrix as well. If this signature happens to be the same as cancer, or a headache, or hayfever... you get cancer or a headache or hayfever. Some peoples energy matrix happens to be more sensitive to particular types of negative vibrational energy. If you're sensitive to the vibrational frequency of grass pollen, you're allergic, if it's mobile phones, or electric blankets you've got Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. It's the same thing, man! It's all connected!... it's just that Nokia are suppressing the truth.
Click to expand...

Maybe so, but that's not an "allergy". I'm open to calling it interference, or bad chi, or resonance, or redefine it as ionizing radiation, or really whatever actually makes sense for vibrations or waves. But "allergy" is a very specific term, really.

Basically the beef I have with "EMW allergy" is that it's like saying that my foot is narcoleptic 'cause it fell asleep again. It makes for maybe a funny wisecrack, if told at the right moment and just right, but the scientific meaning of it is nil.
 
I remember seeing a news clip about a woman in England that covered the inside of all exterior walls with foil and claimed she couldn't go outside because she was deathly allergic to wireless technology.
 
HansMustermann said:
That said, as a side-note, I fail to see how that could possibly be an allergy. Allergies are what happens when one's immune system reacts to some mollecule. But that's the key there: a synthetised protein must get a match on the allergen mollecule, to actually have a reaction. Allergy to radio waves is just about as silly as saying that salt reacts with the microwaves. Actually, no, it's sillier.
Click to expand...

This is only mostly true. It is possible for allergic reactions to occur without an allergen, although it is rare. There are instances of exercise and cold, for example, inducing anaphylaxis as a result of down regulation of the threshold at which mast cell degranulation occurs, triggering a rapidly progressing, life threatening allergic reaction.

This does not of course add any credence to the idea of allergies to radio waves since these reactions tend to be extreme, easily identified and relatively easy to investigate. Unlike most claims of reactions to EM.
 
I should just add that the strength of the reaction to EMF isn't necessarily dose dependent. Once you are sensitized, so the theory goes, near homeopathic levels of the wrong kind of EMF can set you off. You might have a strong source and not react, or an undetectable source and react.

Tough to test.
 
I wonder if cell phone allergy is a conditioned response? I.e. the woman did have an allergic response to something in her environment (e.g., dust, pollen, etc.), but has inadvertently conditioned herself to have a similar physiological response when aware of a cell phone being close by.
 
One way to test this is to have say 10 people in the room, 5 of whom have their phone on, the others have their phone off (anyone who does not have one is given one and told not to look at it to see if it is on or off). If she can tell who has their phone on then you should take her seriously.

If you do this then the 10 people must not know what you are testing. The only person who knows which 5 people have their phone on or off is not in the room when the person who says they can tell is in the room. This makes it close to a double blind study.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
I wonder if cell phone allergy is a conditioned response? I.e. the woman did have an allergic response to something in her environment (e.g., dust, pollen, etc.), but has inadvertently conditioned herself to have a similar physiological response when aware of a cell phone being close by.
Click to expand...
Could be. I think most people don't dispute that people claiming these conditions may well be feeling rotten. But they are so muddled with confirmation bias, regression to the mean and woo. My view is that it's like UFO's, or ghosts... woos are insisting on a single explanation to account for something that may well have no single explanation.
 
shuttlt said:
Take a look at PowerWatch for the Woo view:

http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/
Click to expand...

Quite sober explanations on the technical level, but takes off into nonsense when endorsing their own prodcts. They claim that their products for the home can remove 98% of incoming microwave radiation. That is a bald-faced lie, and with their general technical insigt, they know it.

(Of course, they write "up to 98%", so in legalese terms, they are probably home safe)

Hans
 
shuttlt said:
I should just add that the strength of the reaction to EMF isn't necessarily dose dependent. Once you are sensitized, so the theory goes, near homeopathic levels of the wrong kind of EMF can set you off. You might have a strong source and not react, or an undetectable source and react.

Tough to test.
Click to expand...
And complete nonsense.

It might, conceivably be frequency dependent, so that only certain frequency windows would trigger a response, but it must be dose dependent.

Hans
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom