Nice find... if anyone wants a good list of books tackling this topic check out the Big Igloo bibliography .

You know, I'm really, really glad you guys posted this and took it seriously. I have suspected that I suffer from sensitivity to EMF and cell phone radiation. If I use a cell phone for more than 10 minutes my head and hands start to tingle. I get funny head-twinges and sometimes full-on headaches from cordless phones. I have noticed a striking difference between how I feel in the office (where I'm surrounded by electronic equipment related to office work and film editing, as well as a local WiFi), and how I feel otherwise.

I've mostly kept this to myself because when I mention it to a friend or colleague, they give me one of 'those looks.' I think they immediately think of the film SAFE. I've also mentioned it to doctors here in the USA, and they have not responded well.

My solution has been to spend weekends/days off away from most electronics. Time spent in wild places - parks, beaches - is also very refreshing. I suppose I should not live in a big city, but my work requires it for now.

The announcements of city-wide WiFi installation in my favorite city San Francisco has made me both excited and depressed. Will I be able to spend as much time there, I wonder?

To any fellow readers here, who are hovering over their keyboards about to flame this entire concept - please, think twice.

For about $60 you can buy a battery powered gauss meter to measure the radiation strength of electronics and appliances. The highest emiters (5 to 10+ milligauss) are the microwave, laserprinter when running, bedside alarm, plug in transformers, electric shaver, & the telephone (when ringing especially). Everything else typically less than 4 millgauss. My personal experience was that several such devices in a small office changed the ion balance enough to increase dispersion of allergens and irritating dust. In a sort of Pavlovian response, I wondered if the sight of these devices eventually became a stressor. It does not help that most businesses no longer provide good housekeeping services, contributing to poor indoor air quality.

I can understand why compact flourescent lights may have to be gotten rid of for those with sensitivity to this, but why halogens? Halogens are just incandescents, but with halogen gases and a hotter fillament in order to take advantage of the halogen fillament sublimation-redeposition effect. There's no reason why halogen lights should be gotten rid of if you have EHS. If you have to get rid of halogens, you'd also have to get rid of incandescents; they work by the same electrical principle.

In either case, you can run halogens and incandescents on DC (direct current), which would probably eliminate any radio frequency emissions from the lights: on DC, there's no frequency because the current doesn't oscilate like it does on AC (Alternating Current) circuits.

My knee-jerk reaction is that most of these people are of "Delicate Constitution". But, if someone could point me to a scientific study which concludes this problem truly exists, I am very interested.

I continue to wonder where the studies are. If 2% to 3% of people have this condition, that is a legitimate reason to study the problem and see if their health issues can be linked to EMF. 3% is a huge number of people. The article in NOW is full of anacdotes of health effects from EMF. This makes interesting reading, but people are notoriously bad at understanding statistically significant cause and effect from their own experiences, it is in our nature.

If there really is an effect, let's conclusively study it (again) rather than build more panic. The alternative is to turn our back on 100 years of electric technology.

In response to a couple of recent posts:
A gauss meter only measures magnetic fields. A more useful meter is a sensitive electric field meter capable of distinguishing between 50/60Hz and the higher frequencies that actually cause ES symptoms. I recommend the Aaronia Multidetector II Profi.
The reason halogen lights are a problem is because of the transformer they require. Transformers create the high frequencies that provoke symptoms. If you can run them directly off of DC, then there's no problem. Can you?
If you would like to read some studies about ES, please visit my web site www.LifeEnergies.com/. Also see the resources page there for more sites.
The answer is to use Electricity and differently from how we are using it, not to stop using it. Again, see my site for more info.
Regards,
Shivani A. Wi, USA

FYI

living organisms are collections of cells
cells evolved under the influence of the heavans
the only electromagnetic forces were those from the sun,cosmos and the earths internal responses to these until about 100 years ago.
we are composed of atoms which are electromagnetically glued together.they create and are influenced by electromagnetic forces.
we have created an invisible electromagnetic vibration that is shaking life in a way it was not designed to handle.we are in self destruct mode!
everyday you read of increasing health weirdness.
it can all be tied into our increasing use of digital square wave technology interfering with our internal communication and shaking the atoms of living matter in an adverse manner.
we evolved to follow the cycle of the sun and like all the other lifeforms on this planet.were supposed to be asleep when its dark.our bodies require this for health.artificial lighting has put us out of sync.a flashlight is your healthiest alternative.converting your incandescent lights to run on direct current is the next worst.these newer spiral type florescent lights although great from an energy conservation point of view emit a high frequency electromagnetic vibration which will prove itself to be extremely dangerous to our genetic structure and health.ordinary florescent lights can emit xrays which can be quite powerful under the influences of the power line noise spikes and surges driving them for microseconds.none of the artificial light sources emit the full spectrum of what comes from the sun and that we were designed for.eyeglasses filter out the full health spectrum required from the sun.
those of you suffering from electrosensitivities would do your health a great favour by spending as much time in the great outdoors in the daytime as you can adjust your schedule to allow .
have an electrician configure your house wiring so that you can turn off at night all the circuits at the point of entry except the heating system if tied to electrical requirements .get rid of everything that is digital in your living /working environment.move your bed as far away as you can from metal objects(get rid of spring type mattresses -the coils concentrate artificial electromagnetic lines of force).this electromagnetic fog we have created affects all forms of life.our leaders have been blinded by this "light" and need to be educated or replaced. our greed and stupidity is making mouronic hominoids out of us.
your children are in deep shit!

Thank you for the posting as I have been waiting for this for awareness for years. In 1972 I attended a series of RF pollution seminars staged by Underwriters Laboratories in Chicago. The RF specialists were postulating the possible health related and cancer influences of having microwaves standing on the hair follicles of everyone in the world and what that might do to our genetics. The spurious and VSWR fears seem to have been misplaced as the cancer rate isn't up that much as the use of cell phones are. What is up is the power of the sun. The earth being a spherical electrolytic capacitor electrically is going to a short as we pollute the dielectric and substrate, filling the ionosphere with a mesh of RF that the planet had never seen until the late 1890's. What happens if we do short the Schumann resonance to ground? Can there be a point when that last million cell phones sold and Digital TV station launches breaks down the barrier. Watch the Schumann resonance closely as this will be the sentinel of change regarding RF Pollution. At this point it is still stable, rising slightly, and this new fear will probably be just as the cancer fear was, but it must be watched. What happens to a power supply , the sun, when a device starts to short, the earth? It puts out more current to the affected area until a complete failure occurs. Usually the fuse saves the power supply. Where is our fuse?

In 1972 the cell phone system was just beginging in a race between Motorola and AT&T. On April 3,1973 Martin Cooper of Motorola gag phone called Joe Engle at AT&T in New York City to let him know they had been beaten by Motorola.

Someone asked for research.

Here's the most comprehensive study to date that evaluates all previous research:
http://www.bioinitiative.org/report/index.htm

Here's a layman's article that also evaluates the research and addresses telco-funded industry bias: http://www.townsendletter.com/July2007/wifi0707.htm

Here are some sites that have lots of material on the subject - scientific and otherwise:
www.safewireless.org
www.emrpolicy.org
www.powerwatch.org.uk/studies.asp

Caveat emptor.