We call shenanigans: WiFi "allergies" do not exist, kiddies
Over the past few days there has been increasing furor over a claim made by some "electro-sensitive" folks in Santa Fe that wifi in public buildings violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Because these people are electro-sensitive (and this sensitivity can be to all sorts of electromagnetic fields, in things like cell phones, or microwaves, or, we'd imagine, things like transformer stations and circuit boxes), they can't enter public buildings due to the horrible health effects they experience. These health effects range from chest pains, to leg numbness, to shortness of breath, and headaches.Is wifi dangerous? Are cell phones dangerous? There is some debate about various cancers that may or may not result from having a cell phone pasted to your ear and your laptop constantly humming on your lap, but most cancers don't immediately cause things like, oh, chest pain, leg numbness, or shortness of breath. The verdict is still out on long term effects at this point anyway, and we take the stance that something is eventually going to kill us. Life is too short to live in constant fear, or without an internet connection.
Panic attacks cause the above symptoms. Generalized anxiety does as well. An "allergic" reaction to wifi? Eh.
We look at it this way. Right now, we're sitting in a residential area about eight miles outside of a major city. Turning on our wireless connection and sniffing around reveals eleven wifi networks in the area. Eleven that we could in theory connect with successfully, if they are unsecured. Eleven that are not blocked by things like walls, or doors, or tinfoil hats. We are not in a business district in a city.
Can you imagine the rogue wifi signals that are shooting around Santa Fe? Do the electro-sensitive people believe that wifi respects physical boundaries, and that walking by a coffee shop or public building with wifi is different than walking into one? If so, would they walk by a coffee shop with wifi while the door was open? Would the wireless, ahem, rush out the open door? Is there any place in the US where you can be in a city, or moderately populated town, and not be in range of some wireless signal?Probably not.
Spearheading this move to get wifi out of public buildings is Arthur Firstenberg. He is an author (and also electro-sensitive), we have heard mentioned a few times. It seems he's written and published the book (quite literally) on electro-sensitivity and how we're all doomed unless we unplug, called Microwaving our Planet. But wait, unplugging alone won't do it. Cell phone towers are a huge offender, as are satellites (of the "artificial" variety. The moon has no effect on us, evidently). Anything that gives off radiation is an offender. Anything.
Last we checked, though, everything on this planet is, and always has been, somewhat radioactive. It's why carbon dating works, after all.
According to Firstenberg, who is also president and founder of the Cellular Phone Taskforce, an advocacy group for electro-sensitive people, it only takes two hours on a cell phone to permeate the blood brain barrier and cause albumin to be found in the brain tissue, which in turn causes measurable brain damage. Considering this experiment was done on rats, and that two hours of cell phone exposure (at any level) caused the destruction of 2% of the rat's brain cells, we'd imagine that by this time we'd be seeing human deaths related to these radio-frequency waves. It's not really a new technology.
We don't deny that Firstenberg et al. are experiencing something. Is it an allergy to wifi? Uh, no. Definitely not an allergy, and most likely it has a lot more to do with the "public" than "wifi" aspect of the "public buildings with wifi" descriptor. If the reasoning stands that satellites, and cell towers, and anything that gives off electro-magnetic fields makes some people have this reaction, the added effect of a wifi signal wouldn't make them over the top ill and then mysteriously disappear as they went out of range. They'd be ill in the presence of cars, and pipes, and any place with a clear view of the southern sky.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matthew Pollard said 1:38PM on 5-28-2008
Wifi is a radio signal isn't? Better shut down all radio transmitters too!
Reply
AlexRichards said 6:11PM on 7-05-2008
I'm a technology exec in Silicon Valley and became hypersensitive to electromagnetic fields on February 29, 2006. Since then I have suffered head shocks, burning, rashes, sleep disturbances, memory loss, concentration issues, heart palpitations and more than 20 other symptoms from all forms of wireless technologies. A pain hits my head 5-15 seconds before a cell phone rings nearby. I can detect wireless networks by the sharp rodent-like biting across my scalp. I am affected by frequencies both from power-line fields (60 hertz) and radio frequencies (300 kilohertz to 300 Gigahertz). I can tell relative size of the wave by the pain sensation in my head. For instance, on a trip in the Rocky Mountains, where cellular and WiFi were absent, I experienced Park communications signals at UHF/ VHF like a thick 2 inch nail penetrating my skull. I experience cell phones signals as a drilling sensation. WiFi burns for awhile across a wide area of my head/ face like a rope burn and then starts biting like quick pricks from the tooth of a hamster. 2.45 Gigahertz is one of the worse (WiFi, microwave ovens and many cordless phones) frequencies for me. Later I discovered several scientists including Ross Adey have discovered ‘frequency windows’, where bioeffects attain at some frequencies but not others. I have removed all wireless technologies from my house (I had 11) and even had three of my neighbors move their wireless routers to divert their WiFi signal. I also had to sell my brand-new 2006 BMW 5 series because the GPS and BMW assist systems kept transmitting signals into my house, even with the car turned off. I had already disabled Bluetooth, but that was not enough. I got rid of my cell phone in late 2006.
I’ve personally met two dozen people with the same symptoms. Strange finding: almost everyone I’ve met with this affliction either went to top ten schools, or has an advanced degree. Sampling; five PhD’s, three attorneys, three media execs, five technology execs, two doctors, a pharmacist, several real estate execs, a handful of educators. Only two have ever had any previous psychological or emotional issues. In Sweden, between 230,000 and 290,000 (2.6% of the population) are registered with the government for this disability, which they call electric hypersensitivity (EHS). Britain recognized this disability in September 2006 and asserted that as about 3% of the population might be suffering from the affliction.
I understand that skeptics abound. I was an early adopter. I would never have believed that tiny radio waves that I could neither see, nor feel could affect my health. I bought my first cell phone in 1990 and began using WiFi (remember Ricochet?) in 2000. I’ve worked extensively with Cingular Wireless, Apple (iPhone), Microsoft (Xbox) and Google. I am anything but techno-phobic. Still you might use my experience and hundreds of thousands like me to curb your usage and consider the bet you are making that these signals are not harmful.
If you do the research, you’ll see that these waves are probably affecting us all. 632 studies link 51 bioeffects to low-level, radio-frequency signals (see www.marinproject.org for a complete listing). The 616 page BioInitiative Report (www.bioInitiative.org) released August 2007 by 14 international scientists, reviewed nearly 2000 studies and concluded a strong connection between electromagnetic fields and radio frequency (RF) signals to brain tumors, immune dysfunction, DNA damage, genetic aberrations, Leukemia, cancer, depression, suicide, ADD, Autism and Alzheimer’s. You also might check out www.wirelessStress.com to see how everyday nagging symptoms like headaches, anxiety, sleep issues and joint pain, which we typically attribute to the stresses of modern-day lifestyles, may in fact be triggered by our increasingly wireless world. Test it out: if you have been having sleep problems, or are feeling cloudy, or feeling over-stressed, especially in the past 5 years, unplug your wireless router and turn off your cell phone and move your alarm clock more than 5 feet from your body for a week and notice the difference. Why? Hint: the pineal gland is being disrupted by your WiFi, cell phone and cordless phone. The pineal gland is radio-sensitive and uses the Schumann Resonance (7 hertz wave at less than a picowatt) to trigger endocrine function at night. The pineal gland is responsible for the regulation of melatonin (free-radical scavenger), serotonin production (attitude) and the regulation of your biological clock.
Love to hear the results.
Kristin Shoemaker said 2:04PM on 5-28-2008
It's an absolutely bizarre argument, really, when you think about it. So wifi in public buildings is a problem, but radio isn't so much? What about television? Or those self scanner things at grocery stores? Whatever "triggers" these symptoms can differentiate between wifi and other signals? Is wireless /b better or worse than /n? Does /g cause different symptoms?
In some ways I think it might not be terribly different than something like photo-sensitivity to lights, where certain patterns of flickering can cause seizures/migraines. The big difference is, flickering lights aren't an ambient sort of condition of the world at large. And alas, the resulting seizures are pretty easy to identify and measure medically, whereas chest pain and shortness of breath really aren't.
A doctor has to take a patient's word about pain, and difficulty breathing. There are ways to gage what might be causing such things... but transient symptoms like those described don't usually leave evidence.
I suspect many folks with this "sensitivity" have been exposed to wireless signals without ever realizing, without any effects, ill or otherwise.
Reply
AlexRichards said 10:01PM on 7-05-2008
Frequency windows and reflexivity of microwaves cause different effects in different people. For instance a typical Cell signal is either around 880, or 1900 megahertz. The waves are respectively 13 inches and about 6 inches long. The 6 inch wave (1900 megahertz) is ideal for resonating in the head chamber, as it is of similar size. Recently I took RF density readings in my living room which was 13 nanowatts. Then I put the meter to my 8 year-old's head - it was 60 nanowatts. My wife's head was only 15. Who has the greater impact. WiFi that resonates at 2.4 Gigahertz implies a wave of around 4 1/2 to 5 inches. Good size to resonate with head and heart. As for the Arthur Firstenberg's heart issues: that is largely caused by the high concentration of mast cells in the heart area (and brain). The mast cells are highly radio-sensitive (see BioInitiative report www.bioInitiative.org).
Hope that helps
EnOne said 2:05PM on 5-28-2008
Simple enough to prove, put him in various buildings and ask him if he feels any symptoms. Then use a WiFi detector or radio antenna to tell if he is actually allergic. It would be the electronic equivalent of a scratch test.
Reply
Kristin Shoemaker said 2:12PM on 5-28-2008
Definitely, and I do hope that any judge deciding to proceed onward tries this sort of thing. No need to even change the location of the electro-sensitive person. It would be easy enough to be in a room with a wireless router/access point hidden behind a curtain and randomly turn it off and on at intervals and see if any of the described symptoms consistently occur with the correct state of the router.
AlexRichards said 9:50PM on 7-05-2008
I'm a technology exec in Silicon Valley and became hypersensitive to electromagnetic fields on February 29, 2006. Since then I have suffered head shocks, burning, rashes, sleep disturbances, memory loss, concentration issues, heart palpitations and more than 20 other symptoms from all forms of wireless technologies. A pain hits my head 5-15 seconds before a cell phone rings nearby. I can detect wireless networks by the sharp rodent-like biting across my scalp. I am affected by frequencies both from power-line fields (60 hertz) and radio frequencies (300 kilohertz to 300 Gigahertz). I can tell relative size of the wave by the pain sensation in my head. For instance, on a trip in the Rocky Mountains, where cellular and WiFi were absent, I experienced Park communications signals at UHF/ VHF like a thick 2 inch nail penetrating my skull. I experience cell phones signals as a drilling sensation. WiFi burns for awhile across a wide area of my head/ face like a rope burn and then starts biting like quick pricks from the tooth of a hamster. 2.45 Gigahertz is one of the worse (WiFi, microwave ovens and many cordless phones) frequencies for me. Later I discovered several scientists including Ross Adey have discovered ‘frequency windows’, where bioeffects attain at some frequencies but not others. I have removed all wireless technologies from my house (I had 11) and even had three of my neighbors move their wireless routers to divert their WiFi signal. I also had to sell my brand-new 2006 BMW 5 series because the GPS and BMW assist systems kept transmitting signals into my house, even with the car turned off. I had already disabled Bluetooth, but that was not enough. I got rid of my cell phone in late 2006.
I’ve personally met two dozen people with the same symptoms. Strange finding: almost everyone I’ve met with this affliction either went to top ten schools, or has an advanced degree. Sampling; five PhD’s, three attorneys, three media execs, five technology execs, two doctors, a pharmacist, several real estate execs, a handful of educators. Only two have ever had any previous psychological or emotional issues. In Sweden, between 230,000 and 290,000 (2.6% of the population) are registered with the government for this disability, which they call electric hypersensitivity (EHS). Britain recognized this disability in September 2006 and asserted that as about 3% of the population might be suffering from the affliction.
I understand that skeptics abound. I was an early adopter. I would never have believed that tiny radio waves that I could neither see, nor feel could affect my health. I bought my first cell phone in 1990 and began using WiFi (remember Ricochet?) in 2000. I’ve worked extensively with Cingular Wireless, Apple (iPhone), Microsoft (Xbox) and Google. I am anything but techno-phobic. Still you might use my experience and hundreds of thousands like me to curb your usage and consider the bet you are making that these signals are not harmful.
If you do the research, you’ll see that these waves are probably affecting us all. 632 studies link 51 bioeffects to low-level, radio-frequency signals (see www.marinproject.org for a complete listing). The 616 page BioInitiative Report (www.bioInitiative.org) released August 2007 by 14 international scientists, reviewed nearly 2000 studies and concluded a strong connection between electromagnetic fields and radio frequency (RF) signals to brain tumors, immune dysfunction, DNA damage, genetic aberrations, Leukemia, cancer, depression, suicide, ADD, Autism and Alzheimer’s. You also might check out www.wirelessStress.com to see how everyday nagging symptoms like headaches, anxiety, sleep issues and joint pain, which we typically attribute to the stresses of modern-day lifestyles, may in fact be triggered by our increasingly wireless world. Test it out: if you have been having sleep problems, or are feeling cloudy, or feeling over-stressed, especially in the past 5 years, unplug your wireless router and turn off your cell phone and move your alarm clock more than 5 feet from your body for a week and notice the difference. Why? Hint: the pineal gland is being disrupted by your WiFi, cell phone and cordless phone. The pineal gland is radio-sensitive and uses the Schumann Resonance (7 hertz wave at less than a picowatt) to trigger endocrine function at night. The pineal gland is responsible for the regulation of melatonin (free-radical scavenger), serotonin production (attitude) and the regulation of your biological clock.
Love to hear the results.
Kristin Shoemaker said 9:09AM on 7-06-2008
@AlexRichards
I wasn't going to respond, at first, because in many ways this hit very close to home, and not in the way you're probably thinking. I know that I am not going to be able to dissuade you from thinking that it is EMF/wifi causing your ill health, just as you aren't going to be able to dissuade me from thinking there's likely another cause. I just want you to know where I'm coming from.
I am going to say a few things, though: first, I hope that for your own sake, you looked in to... and pushed... thoroughly... for doctors to look for other causes of your pain. And I will say also that if I personally had become ill in 2006, I'd still be pushing for tests to discover another cause. Some illnesses, horrendous illnesses, take time to discover. As in, significantly more than two years.
Next, I have to take a bit of exception to the observation that it's been people with advanced degrees and decent success in life that seem to have been affected by this more... It certainly could be your experience, and I can't discount *that*. I'm not sure what the implication is, though, with that statement. Maybe there isn't one. But most illnesses don't really discriminate who they're going to strike. Some will occur more in some ethnic backgrounds, perhaps, but so far as I know, there is not a whole lot of faith in any research that claims "people with X affliction are smarter than the average population." My understanding is that in the same way small pox doesn't care if you've got a 175 IQ or a 70 IQ, nor does something like bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, or clinical depression. It may be an interesting observation, but it would be misleading to think that because those suffering are intelligent, they can't have something physical, or mental, going on.
There are many shades of disability. This is where things get difficult for doctors. Many people perceive their pain, or fatigue as being a lot worse than it really is. And there are others who might be in crippling, horrible pain and report it as a 5 on the pain scale. It's why doctors like tests, and numbers, so much. They can quantify them.
I simultaneously like and hate that you brought up "sleep disturbances". Over twenty-two years ago, at the tender age of 13, I started having sleep disturbances. It's a really vague term. My dad was so worried that his 13 year old was forgoing school events to be in bed at 7 pm on Fridays, he took me to the doctor. The doctor said, "All kids are tired." End of story.
I also want to point out that this was circa 1986. No cell phones in my house at that time (actually, my parents still live there and there is *still* no cell reception). We didn't actually even have cable television. Sleep remained crappy, but no one could really push, because what do 99 percent of people complain of at doctor's visits? Fatigue!
It did eventually get really bad. I am actually (I admit) so insanely jealous that you were able to take a trip to the Rockies, though I am sorry you were in pain. I don't take vacations anymore. I don't go to the movies anymore... Because spending money on a movie ticket, when I can not stay awake through the whole two hour film seems pretty senseless.
Finally, I got a doctor who listened. I told her I was tired, and she said, "So what does that mean... to you... Because it means very different things to different people." After twenty odd years... there is a neurological cause, that can actually be measured, and quantified, for what is wrong with me. Bad news is that even treated, I am not what you'd call fully functional. I am not legally able to drive. That's not a big deal to me... My doctors do not want me using anything but the microwave to cook, so that I don't burn the house down.
What I am saying is this... many people suffer from many different things. Doctors get jaded. I am jaded. I would love to kick the crud out of people who say they are tired and there must be something wrong, when they are able to function normally (keep a job, drive, and still have time for relationships) only only six hours of sleep and a couple of mocha lattes. It is partly because I wish I could do that. It is mostly because that made it THAT MUCH HARDER for a doctor to even listen to what I was telling them.
I am really digressing. Do EMF allergies exist? There is no evidence at all right now. I've not seen the Swedish study, but the British one (if it is the one I'm thinking of) seemed to have some flaws. If they do exist... Fine. Then I am wrong. But then there are a whole bunch of people self-diagnosing this. The more people self-diagnose it, if/when it is proven, and becomes accepted as an illness in mainstream medicine, those that might honest to god suffer from it are up the creek.
Still, strongly advise anyone that feels ill for a long period to go to the doctor. It can take years to get answers. Some illnesses take years to make themselves known (thinking of the rheumatological ones, mostly). Even if turning off the wifi makes your chest pain go away... go to the cardiologist. Please.
Alfredo Pinto said 2:16PM on 5-28-2008
This Persons just want to abuse the Justice. It looks like they don't know nothing about electro-magnetic fields. They just want money.
BTW "Life is too short to live in constant fear, or without an internet connection." - What a cool quote.
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Kristin Shoemaker said 2:30PM on 5-28-2008
Thanks... I am inclined to believe the same thing. It is a little depressing, because in the long run it makes things more difficult for people with disabilities who are facing accessibility or overt discrimination issues.
I'm fairly well convinced that those involved in the lawsuit do have some health issues, I just sincerely doubt whatever it is has anything to do with wifi, or electro-magnetic fields or proximity to cell phones.
Rick said 2:39PM on 5-28-2008
I remember seeing an experiment done on UK TV with one of these so-called electro-sensitive people. Whenever they showed her a working phone, she claimed she was getting a headache. When they sneaked a working phone into the room without telling her, no headache. And when they showed her a phone which appeared to be on, but had it's radio module disabled, she claimed headache.
The summary is that "electro-sensitive" people only have these problems when someone blatently uses a radio-emitting device in front of their faces. There's nothing physical about it, just a bunch of nutjob busybodies.
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Rick said 2:43PM on 5-28-2008
Here's the BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6914492.stm
Kristin Shoemaker said 2:59PM on 5-28-2008
Thanks for the link, Rick. I'm fairly sure the same mechanism is working here (and is charmingly coupled with the litigious nature of so many of us these days).
nick ring said 11:06AM on 5-29-2008
I don't really want to get into the validity of their particular argument, but some of the arguments against it don't hold up so well. There is a huge spectrum of wave frequencies, some we can see (light), but most we can't. Different frequencies affect different things differently, they are not the same.
We already know that proximity to high-power electric lines increases the likelihood of certain forms of cancer. We already know that close proximity to transmitters in the FM radio bands can have serious effects. We already know that we can use very high frequency radiation to address various forms of cancer.
We also know that different people have different sensitivity levels to all sorts of things, natural or artificial. Is it so unreasonable to think that people have different levels of reaction to particular frequencies at particular strengths?
This is not to say that some/much of this may not be more psychosomatic than anything else--as various lines of logic or experiments suggest--but lets not make our counter-arguments on even shakier grounds than the ones we're arguing against. the answer to blind ludditeism is not blind anti-ludditeism.
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Kristin Shoemaker said 12:51PM on 5-29-2008
I guess the difficulty I ran into with this was Firstenberg's writings themselves. He is all over the place with all sorts of wavelengths causing just about everything. It's actually fairly difficult to make really strong arguments about a guy who is casting around evidence like a drowning man whose life preserver floated just out of reach.
I agree, to a point, about different reactions to different frequencies. However, as I did more digging, it appeared that many of the arguments by Firstenberg wouldn't have supported the different wavelength/affectation theory. In one piece (linked in the article) he stated research pointed to no differences in brain damage based on a subject's proximity to the frequency. He also has stated in interviews he's unable to go in certain rooms in public buildings due to the wifi in those particular rooms, as if the signal obeys strict physical boundaries.
He states in some writings that it causes the symptoms he has, and hints that autism and diabetes and all sorts of illnesses are ultimately related to radio frequencies. Allergies are caused by any number of allergens... peanuts, pollen, dust mites... and all return a fairly similar set of symptoms. They vary in severity, but generally involve the same set of organs and reactions. This isn't, though, apparently what THIS allergy does.
If it does exist, I feel badly for the sufferers, because the man speaking for them really isn't making their case.
James said 3:20PM on 5-29-2008
I don't think anybody is saying it's impossible for anyone anywhere to be sensitive to radio frequency noise, or to suffer when they're near it. What *is* being said is that there are hordes of people who *claim* to, and every single scientific test of their claims shows they're lying (or that the effect is psychosomatic, which is the same thing really).
IF anybody has ever experienced it, they're probably one in a billion, and frankly the chances of being sensitive to one tiny narrow band of the spectrum (like that generated by, say, a mobile phone) rather than a broad swath (that is, a lot of frequencies grouped *around* the mobile phone frequency) are even smaller. So if it ever does manifest itself, it's almost certain to be a) in a small single-digit number of people in any given decade, and b) caused by more tha just one or two devices.
The actual cause of the syndrome that's widely reported is generally poor understanding of what radio waves are and how they work. It's the precise same phenomenon that caused people to drink irradiated water back in the thirties (twenties?) -- nobody understands physics.
Alex said 6:08PM on 5-29-2008
This is so dumb.
Radio waves and magnetic fields are everywhere. I mean wherever you go you can get something on the radio and regular wires in your house generate magnetic fields. anyways wi-fi dosn't respect things like walls much so if they even go by a place with wi-fi they would feel it
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Paul Camp said 10:26AM on 5-30-2008
I hear aluminum foil keeps the beams out of your head.
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Jane said 3:41PM on 6-11-2008
You may mock, but such people who suffer these problems exist. here's an example:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-450995/The-woman-needs-veil-protection-modern-life.html
It's easy to dismiss it as psychosomatic, but as someone who works in this area (psychological/psychiatric) I know that symptoms that 'can't be explained' are often dismissed as 'all in the mind'. Obviously it doesn't help that (as Rick pointed out) once someone has an unpleasant reaction to something the thought of going through the unpleasant symptoms again can bring on a psychological belief that they are suffering those symptoms again. In this case, when they think the stimuli (in this case wi-fi, mobile phones) is present when it's actually not. That doesn't mean they don't have symptoms from these electro magnetic fields. Yes, it sounds bizarre, but that doesn't mean it's not real. Also often epileptic attacks (which can't be brought on psychosomatically) can come about due to changes in electro magnetic frequencies.
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Kristin Shoemaker said 4:59PM on 6-11-2008
Well, sort of...
There is no excuse for any doctor who is unwilling to look for an organic cause of a patient's distress. I wholeheartedly agree that too many are willing to write a person off as depressed or anxious rather than see if there are underlying health issues that may be causing symptoms.
However, the woman in the story you linked certainly makes it sound as if she went to plenty of practitioners to see if they could find an organic cause of illness. They couldn't seem to. It does state she diagnosed herself with this sensitivity.
And I will also wholeheartedly admit... Even if there *is* no organic cause of illness, and the cause is purely psychological, that doesn't mean it isn't a REAL illness. But it might not be the illness that the sufferer is believing it is. And of course it still doesn't make those symptoms less debilitating.
However, to remove wifi from places where it might actually be necessary to get work of any variety done... and there is no hard evidence of it causing symptoms of an organic basis (or even a consistent range of symptoms that can't be proven to be organic) is counterproductive. I may be deluded into thinking wifi will cause immediate symptoms that make my life unbearable, and I may believe it so strongly that it does. But should we remove wifi from places because of that?
What if I am delusional and I think everyone wearing red sweaters is carrying a disease I could contract that affects only me in a very specific way? What if I believed men with beards caused me to get dizzy and nauseous? It may be very true to me... I probably would in those cases feel honest to god ill. But should everyone stop wearing red sweaters and start shaving?
I did a quick check on PubMed just to verify I was understanding correctly... Epilepsy (and specifically those seizures that are of the tonic-clonic variety) are actually caused by PHOTOsensitivity, not electromagnetic frequencies. It's not the same animal. They have done some studies with EMF and seizure frequency/latency, but the results are fairly inconclusive (latency is in some studies a bit faster, frequency is pretty much the same with controls.)
So lights (esp. flickering lights of certain intensities and patterns... like a faulty flourescent at the grocery store or a light on an emergency vehicle) can trigger seizures in people with a certain form of epilepsy. Light bulbs do have EMFs (like many things that *don't* cause seizures in the same population) but the EMFS aren't the triggering factor.