The Santa Fe New Mexican reports a man claiming to suffer from electromagnetic sensitivity is suing his neighbor for refusing to disconnect her electronic devices.
Santa Fe, New Mexico resident Arthur Firstenberg claims that his neighbor Raphaela Monribot’s use of electronic devices such as cell phones, computers, compact fluorescent lights and dimmer rheostats is aggravating his “electromagnetic sensitivity” and causing him to get sick.
“Within a day of [Monribot] moving in, I began to feel sick when I was in my house,” Firstenberg writes in his affidavit. “The electric meter for my house is mounted on [Monribot's] house. Electromagnetic fields emitted in [Monribot's] house are transmitted by wire directly into my house.”
A request for preliminary injunction claims Fristenberg’s condition has left him homeless. Fristenberg “cannot stay in a hotel, because hotels and motels all employ wi-fi connections, which trigger a severe illness. If [Firstenberg] cannot obtain preliminary relief, he will be forced to continue to sleep in his car, enduring winter cold and discomfort, until this case can be heard.”
The Santa Fe New Mexican notes “Firstenberg’s motion is accompanied by dozens of notes from doctors, some dating back more than a decade, about his sensitivities.”
However, scientific studies such as this 2005 trial at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Germany suggest electromagnetic sensitivity is strictly a psychosomatic disorder.
The major study endpoint was the ability of the subjects to differentiate between real magnetic stimulation and a sham condition. There were no significant differences between groups in the thresholds, neither of detecting the real magnetic stimulus nor in motor response.
We found no objective correlate of the self perception of being “electrosensitive.” Overall, our experiment does not support the hypothesis that subjectively electrosensitive patients suffer from a physiological hypersensitivity to EMFs or stimuli.
Do you acknowledge Fristenberg, and others claiming electronic sensitivity, may be suffering real physiological effects and should be allowed to live free from electronic devices? Or should treatment be strictly psychological?
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