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"Wi-Fi Refugees" Shelter in West Virginia Mountains
The 13,000 sq mile U.S. Radio Quiet Zone is an area in West Virginia where all wireless transmissions are banned because of the large number of radio telescopes located there. (This official page shows a map of the Zone; an old Wired article is fascinating reading.) These high-tech telescopes have attracted unlikely neighbors, people who claim to have Wi-Fi allergies. In recent years, scores of people have moved to the area to escape the "damage" that electromagnetic fields can cause them. From the article: "Diane Schou is unable to hold back the tears as she describes how she once lived in a shielded cage to protect her from the electromagnetic radiation caused by waves from wireless communication. 'It's a horrible thing to have to be a prisoner,' she says. 'You become a technological leper because you can't be around people. It's not that you would be contagious to them — it's what they're carrying that is harmful to you.'"
There are some fucking crazy dudes out in those hills, just ask the locals.
It's not nice to talk about the scientists at the radio telescope observatory that way. I would have thought a site dedicated to geek culture would be a bit more understanding ...
Sorry, Diane, but you are contagious. Just as you learned of this invented disease from someone else, you've undoubtedly passed it along to another hypochondriac. Just because it's not transmitted by biological vectors doesn't mean that it can't spread from person to person.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity :
The majority of provocation trials to date have found that self-described sufferers of electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to distinguish between exposure to real and fake electromagnetic fields,[2][3] and it is not recognized as a medical condition by the medical or scientific communities.[4]
[2] Rubin, James; J Das Munshi J, Simon Wessely (March–April 2005). "Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: a systematic review of provocation studies". Psychosomatic Medicine 67 (2): 224–32. doi:10.1097/01.psy.0000155664.13300.64. PMID 15784787.
[3] Röösli M (June 2008). "Radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure and non-specific symptoms of ill health: a systematic review". Environ. Res. 107 (2): 277–87. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2008.02.003. PMID 18359015.
[4] http://www.cdc.gov/search.do?q=%22Electromagnetic+hypersensitivity%22+&btnG.x=20&btnG.y=5&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ud=1&site=default_collection
I'm 45, and while the likes of the Internet and mass-media obviously provide significantly more information than we ever had in the past, I just don't remember so many people having food allergies, aversions, ADD, "sensitivities", or other maladies that are so abundant today. Is it because we are less ignorant and more informed of what were otherwise "hidden" issues, or have we physically evolved into people weaker constitutions?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Really the best remedy would be homeopathy. What better way to treat an imagined allergy than an imagined cure?
There was a story on Slashdot a couple of years ago about a mobile company that put up a mast in a village, and started getting complaints from people saying that the transmitter was giving them headaches and so on. They issued quite an amusing press release, saying that they were sorry and they hoped that the symptoms wouldn't get much worse next month when they turned the transmitter on...
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I bet she is going to be pissed when she finds out there is in fact radio transmissions there... quite a bit of them in fact. The ones that are banned are the ones from outsiders. They transmit thier own radio signals that are accounted for in the science, as are the goverenment radio signals. There is in fact more electro-magnetic radiation in that area than in a city. Its a true lack of understanding of anything in reality that makes these people do these things. After all... light is also electromagnetic radiation, and there is radio waves coming from the sun and stars but she doesnt mention anything about having problems in the sun or looking at the stars. Crackpot ignorant people.
Spoken like someone who knows nothing of the south. Lemme guess, you come from California, right?
No, WV is NOT part of the Bible Belt. It's not even part of the South. In fact, it split away from regular Virginia during the Civil War because that part of the state agreed with the Unionists, while the other part of the state became the capital of the Confederacy.
The "Bible Belt" is really the Deep South, which is MS, AL, GA, etc. The people of WV probably have a lot more in common with the people of western PA and eastern KY than anyone in the Deep South.