'Wi-fi refugees' shelter in West Virginia mountains | Hacker News Reader

'Wi-fi refugees' shelter in West Virginia mountains

bbc.co.uk

16 pointsobtino4 comments

The wikipedia article has a bit more detail for those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivit...

Seven studies were found which did report an association, while 24 could not find any association with electromagnetic fields. However, of the seven positive studies, two could not be replicated even by the original authors, three had serious methodological shortcomings, and the final two presented contradictory results. Since then, several more double-blind experiments have been published, each of which has suggested that people who report electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the presence of electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill health following a sham exposure, as they are following exposure to genuine electromagnetic fields. [1]

This is the sort of thing that should have been mentioned in the article. Either through shoddy research or intentional omission the author included none of this and left it with two short paragraphs of dissent. The article gives the impression little work has been done on this issue.

Another example of shoddy science reporting in the media. sigh

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivit...

I was interested in the study mentioned, as I'd never before heard of positive evidence for such a phenomenon. This [0] appears to be the paper referred to. The results seem pretty bizarre and hardly support the rosy view presented in the article. In particular, the symptoms are different for nearly every trial and symptoms were reported for half of the sham trials.

This is also 20 trials with a single subject, so it's probably too early to talk about broad applicability. It would also be good to see some replications in a more respected journal.

[0] http://www.avaate.org/IMG/pdf/EHS-_A_Novel_Diagnosis.pdf

Very good. I applaud their decision to live well apart from me. Now if I could only convince the woman at Vons who is convinced that a DJ from Portland is controlling people in Los Angeles using the US Bank Tower to do the same.

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