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French Woman Gets €800/month For Electromagnetic-Field 'Disability'

Posted by Soulskill on from the better-stay-away-from-that-glowy-orange-ball-in-the-sky dept.

An anonymous reader writes: If you were dismayed to hear Tuesday's news that a school is being sued over Wi-Fi sickness, you might be even more disappointed in a recent verdict by the French judicial system. A court based in Toulouse has awarded a disability claim of €800 (~$898) per month for three years over a 39-year-old woman's "hypersensitivity to electromagnetic waves." Robin Des Toits, an organization that campaigns for "sufferers" of this malady, was pleased: "We can no longer say that it is a psychiatric illness." (Actually, we can and will.) The woman has been living in a remote part of France's south-west mountains with no electricity around. She claims to be affected by common gadgets like cellphones.

21 of 456 comments (clear)

  1. When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Subject says it all. It really is time to start taking lawyers and other bottom feeders to task. Mentally ill people should be treated for their paranoia, not have it confirmed.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by thedonger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Subject says it all. It really is time to start taking lawyers and other bottom feeders to task. Mentally ill people should be treated for their paranoia, not have it confirmed.

      I'm just happy to see it happen somewhere other than the US. Turns out other countries have nuts and greedy lawyers, too.

      --
      Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
    2. Re:When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Like what?

      Restless leg syndrome?
      Non-24?
      SAD?
      PBA?
      ADD?

      All a bunch of bullshit invented to sell drugs that don't even WORK.

    3. Re: When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by hackwrench · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you know that ADD / ADHD are just excuses for why isn't my parenting technique working, then you must know what parenting techniques work to eliminate the symptoms. Elucidate us.

      Also, in order for ADD/ADHD to not be real then the symptoms must not be real and no parenting technique will work any more than the drugs. Also the observed improvement attributed to the drugs must be fake too. So what is the true nature of the observed behavior if you are so certain it's not real?

    4. Re:When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by sjames · · Score: 4, Informative

      Do you remember a few years ago when stomach ulcers were "known" to be caused by excessive anxiety?

      "Non-24" is stupid marketing around a problem that is entirely non-controversial. You'd have to be a complete moron to not suspect that blind people might not synchronize well to a light cue. By far, the more remarkable observation is that some totally blind people do synchronize to light cues.

      SAD is non-controversial. The disorder is documented as is the treatment. The treatment isn't a drug, BTW, it's a bright light. Alternatively, you can make an effort to get more sunlight in the day (unless you're above the arctic circle, of course).

      RLS and PBA are also non-controversial.

      ADD is real but most of the kids diagnosed don't actually have it.

      You've been confused by the disease mongering over-simplified commercials. They are real conditions that people actually have. The quick fix they offer may or may not be helpful and may or may not kill you with side effects.

    5. Re:When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by dcollins117 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      From TFA:

      "Several people in the UK have been diagnosed with electrosensitivity and received help for the disability but any financial allowance usually refers to a different name for the condition or a related condition," it [the court] said in a statement.

      I'll bet the judge decided she was so delusional as to be unfit to work, and gave her benefits based on that. The "different name for the condition" could be delusional thinking (or whatever the correct psychiatric term for that is - IANAP). Mental illness certainly can be debilitating.

    6. Re: When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by Sarten-X · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have ADD, and I've had it for many years.

      The name is horrible. It's not that I lack the ability to pay attention, so much as I am required to pay attention to multiple things at once. To make an analogy to computers, my brain must run multithreaded. If I have to focus on a single task, a part of me is bored, and I can feel it. In a child, that frustration often leads to misbehavior, which is why the "bad parenting" myth persists.

      It's worth noting that many medications function by shutting down that extra part, but often they don't relieve the discomfort. Sure, the ability to focus improves, but it doesn't make the subject any better.

      I've taught myself to cope with the condition, usually entertaining myself with tactile puzzles or other fiddly bits while my more-conscious attention is watching the more important task. As I type this, for example, I have a triple-tap adapter nearby, that I periodically pick up and toss around while consciously thinking about my words. That's enough to satisfy the need to do something else. Similar techniques get me through the day at work, where I've been able to use the wide focus to me advantage, being able to troubleshoot several problems at once.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    7. Re:When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would it no longer be a disease just because it is easily avoided and is best cured by something other than drugs?

    8. Re: When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum by aaronb1138 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wait, I must have ADD then because when I am on a call and the content is boring (especially conference calls) I frequently fiddle with objects around or near my desk to amuse myself.

      That isn't ADD, it's being bored, whether due to intellect, knowledge, or interest level in the subject. Everyone deals with boredom. It's like the weird dream of driving a car from the back seat. It's an astonishingly common dream, but most people think it's strange because they haven't heard another person talk about it before. You're not special, sorry.

  2. Not this shit again... by pla · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Well controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure."

    Done in one.

    1. Re:Not this shit again... by captnjohnny1618 · · Score: 4, Funny

      These people also "sensitive" to the following:

      data, facts, statistics, double blind studies, and science.

      ;-)

    2. Re:Not this shit again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Anything with a double-blind requirement falls well short of settling an issue because it is subjective.

      That is nonsensical. A test has a double blind requirement because it's the standard in removing bias from the equation.
      The question of exactly what you're testing and to what degree, is not subjective either. What you are saying (badly) is experiments are often used to justify application in out-of-context scenarios (see Chemotherapy). That is a separate socio-political issue, outside of the realm of science and has nothing to do with subjectivity, but a lot to do with ignorance and malfeasance.

    3. Re:Not this shit again... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Funny

      I have double-blind sensitivity syndrome, you insensitive clod!

  3. Where's my disability money? by gsslay · · Score: 5, Funny

    I suffer from hyper-sensitivity to delusional stupidity. I'm living on the same planet as this woman and it's crippling me.

  4. Re:PBS show of cellphone cancer recently by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A documentary isn't a study.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  5. Re:PBS show of cellphone cancer recently by iceperson · · Score: 5, Informative

    I saw a third party documentary that said the Pyramids were constructed by aliens...

  6. Camel's nose under the tent by goodmanj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    See, this is why you can't give pseudoscience an inch. Every little success validates it in the eyes of its own practitioners, and legitimizes it in the eyes of the public, until society tumbles down the rabbit hole of paranoia and irrational fear of the harmless on one hand, and blind trust in actually harmful practices on the other hand.

  7. Sunlight has a large electromgnetic field by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 4, Interesting
    About 1kw/m^2 and a few hundred volts/m IIRC

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  8. Re:That's 800€ by the way. by Martin+Blank · · Score: 4, Informative

    In English, Irish, Latvian, and Maltese, the Euro symbol is placed before the value. This is actually encoded in official European Union usage guidelines.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  9. I don't actually have a problem with this.... by mark-t · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .... as long as the woman is getting mandatory psychological treatment.

    All available evidence on Electromagnetic sensitivity suggests that is actually a purely psychosomatic disorder, but belief is tremendously powerful thing and can produce real and measurable physiological changes in a person, causing immune reactions without any externally visible cause, change in hormone levels that should otherwise only be explainable by other external phenomonena, etc.

    Treating serious psychosomatic disorders requires the person to not just be aware that the problem is all in their own mind, but it also requires that a person be aware of some pathway to a solution to their apparent problem. I have heard it best described by one psychologist as (althouh I am paraphrasing here, this is not a direct quote) "there's nothing actually wrong with your hardware, but basically the software in your brain is misfiring and telling your body the wrong thing.". A person with a psychosomatic disorder needs to learn a skill that is not necessarily easy to come by, and that is to learn how to ignore those essentially false signals that their brain is telling their own body, and causing it to react in ways that might otherwise be attributed to some external phenomena. This is why the person needs psychiatric help.

    Simply telling an EHS sufferer that it's just all in their own head and they should be able to simply think their way out of their problem is only going to get you ignored, because their body may still be producing a real reaction to something, even if that something is only imagined.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  10. A simple test is in order by kheldan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Pretend to use a cellphone in her presence. When she starts complaining of symptoms and discomfort, show her that the phone not only isn't on, that it doesn't even have a battery in it so there's no chance it could have been on.

    I did something similar to this with a friend of mine who claimed to be able to see infrared light from TV remotes. While he wasn't looking I removed the batteries from one, then called his name and when he turned around, pointed it at him and pushed buttons. He complained about how much that hurt his eyes, and how could I do that to him? Then I showed him the remote had no batteries in it. Needless to say he was somewhat embarassed. Still claims to be able to 'see' IR light though.

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