Understanding Electrosensitivity: How we're Texting and Talking our Way to Illness
You may not be the first person to ask why so many people have “suddenly” become electrosensitive?
I recently watched a wonderful video made by George Carlos, M.D. in 2008*. He explains something I’ve wondered about for a long time. How in the world did mobile phones, given what we know about them now, get passed off as a safe technology?
How does texting or talking on your phone, or living with wireless in your home create the conditions for electrosensitivity to develop in a person? You’ll get the answer as you read this article. It’s one of those – “really?” moments. Humans just make assumptions.... and the one they made is turning into possibly the biggest health crisis the world has ever seen.
Talking and texting with your mobile phone is considered almost as necessary as breathing for most people under 30 and increasingly for those of us over 30 as well. Most are oblivious to exactly how this miracle of communication happens. Who needs to know anyway? It works, it’s convenient, and most of us, of any age, use a cellphone on a daily basis.
So, what’s the downside? For most people, it’s nothing obvious, yet (but exposure damage is cumulative). There is a growing group called Electrosensitives (ES) and an illness called Electromagnetic Sensitivity, (also called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) or Electromagnetic Sensitivity (EMS or ES) that is bringing people to their knees. Or, more accurately, it’s driving them away from anything or any place that has wireless signals. It’s killing them – or at very least, making them feel very, very bad and very isolated.
If you can slog through next paragraph, where 3 different frequencies are described, you’ll get the opening clues to electrosensitivity. Read on to see what happened on a Larry King show, and how this blew open Pandora’s Box for all the world to see that wireless technology has a heck of a downside!
Dr. Carlos starts out by explaining that all electromagnetic radiation does not affect us the same way. He describes 3 different frequencies of radiation that produce different reactions in our body.
- Dirty Electricity - Extremely low-frequency radiation from power lines, or dirty electricity – this has a magnetic effect, but there is a safe threshold that the body can tolerate (and reject). (This is why the Satic home system, and the Stetzer filters work – they lower the amount of dirty electricity to a level that does not stress out the body. Click for more info on filters) This is classified as magnetic energy. (electromagnetic radiation) and non-ionizing. Past the safe threshold, these waves are a problem for your body.
- Higher frequencies - Ionizing radiation – We aren’t exposed to this very often. These waves are called x-ray and gamma rays. They cause high energy breaking of chemical bonds- so strong it can directly break DNA and other chemical bonds. These aren’t really an issue either since you mostly wear protection (like an x-ray at the dentist) when exposed to them.
- Mid-Range - Radio Frequency Waves from cell phones – When you text and speak on your cell phone, you’re using radio frequency waves. No problem? Well, actually this is what the government regulatory bodies thought too. They knew radio frequencies were safe, so they exempted from pre-market safety testing when they launched in Europe and USA in 1980’s. Those agencies reasonably assumed that frequency for cell phones would operate thru the same mechanisms as the radio frequency waves we had used for decades. So no problem, right? Wrong.
Here comes the mystery
Everything was fine until Larry King brought on the husband of a man whose wife had died of a brain tumor. David Renard bought his wife a cell phone. David Perlmutter, her surgeon, showed an x-ray on that TV show that showed that her tumor that had started right where she held her cell phone and grew from the outside of the skin INTO her brain. People freaked out. It was a clear connection between using the phone and then getting a brain tumor.
The cell phone industry held a press conference assuring the public that thousands of studies had been done showing how safe wireless was. Only....there were no studies- this was an absolute lie. During congressional hearings, it became clear that the 15 million people using cell phones were using a technology that wasn’t safe for human use. They put 28.5 million into a research study – which was given to Dr. George Carlo, the doctor who created the video I watched. As we now know, he found cell phones were anything but safe.
Ta-da! And now for the answer.
Dr. Carlos explains that when you send an email, text someone, or talk on a cell phone, you are changing a plain radio frequency into a carrier wave. The reason they are called carrier waves is because they are carrying “information packets” (email, phone call, texting). He called this RF radiation.
RF radiation is unlike any radiation ever seen before. Humans have not been able to adapt a compensation mechanism that will protect us from this type of radiation. We know that most wireless communication is radio waves that carry packets of energy in their frequency. These carrier wave frequencies are in the 1900-2000 MHz range. The heart beats at 2 Hz. – or 2 cycles per second. 1900 MHz is 19 million cycles per second. This frequency is so high, biological tissue cannot recognize it
Radio waves in and of themselves pass through our bodies without doing damage. These frequencies do not exist in nature so the body ignores them. However, as it turns out, the body does recognize the frequency once you add information to a radio wave. When we text someone, or use our cell phones, or our WiFi connections, the way the information is carried from one place to another is in a form called “information packets”. Your text message becomes a packet of information that is carried by a radio wave or “carrier waves”.
Have you ever seen a clothes line that includes a pulley at each end so you can move the clothes line to add more clothes to it? When you put clothes on the clothes line, it is the equivalent to putting data packets on a carrier wave. These packets carry the information you want to convey – via voice, or email, or text. Imagine you rapidly pull the clothes line towards you. As the speed increases the clothes flap, creating a wave. In a similar manner, as more data is added to a radio frequency signal, you have carrier wave that is flying along – creating a strong secondary “information wave”. This wave generates a hertz range that CAN be recognized by the body. And now we have a big problem.
The danger comes from this secondary information wave that is recognized by the body. Here’s what happens.:
- This secondary wave enters the body, and heads for your cells. Let’s imagine that it hits one cell.
- The cell membrane has protein sensors on the outside of the cell that vibrate. They are vibrating at a certain frequency (a healthy frequency for a human being).
- When this secondary information wave comes in the vicinity of the protein sensor the cell and this wave start to communicate. The cell is looking for a friendly resonant energy and doesn’t find it .
- In other words, the cell decides if this is a good visitor or a bad visitor. Since the cell membrane doesn’t know what it is, having never experienced this frequency, it always treats it as bad.
- When it does this, this cell sends a message to surrounding cells through something called microtubules (tubes that connect cells). The message is: “we are under siege- protect yourself”.
- Then cell membrane sends a message that closes down active transport mechanisms in the cell – it hardens the cell, decreasing cell permeability. Cell nutrients cannot get into the cell, and waste cannot get out of the cell.
- Because nutrients cannot get into the cell, the cell loses energy; it becomes energy deficient so it can no longer send signals through microtubules. This means rapid intracellular communication gets shut off. The cells can’t talk to each other. The tissues cannot be efficient, organs cannot be efficient, therefore, the organs get sick.
- So when you intervene with a subtle energy intervention (like the Shield) , you get an immediate positive response. The subtle energy comes into and vibrates on the microtubules restoring intercellular communicate and communication between the cells. Microtubules are usually filled with water. For there to be intertubular communication-they have to contract and expand to work properly. When that happens there is a little hole in the water channel and that’s where the signal goes. When you bring in the subtle energy from the outside, the microtubule “hiccups” and is basically reset. (so is this what the Shield is doing?)
- Now remember, when there is a problem, toxins cannot get out of the cell. Mitochondria has the job of providing energy for the cell. When free radicals go to the mitochondria in the cell they compromise the functioning of the mitochondria, and the cell loses energy.
- The cell also contains is messenger RNA. It floats around in the cell, observing cell dynamics. If there is a problem, it folds around the problem to take a message to the DNA of the cell in the nucleus and mitochondria. When the messenger RNA comes in, and starts to convey that information, it results in several pieces of RNA and DNA to be unbound in the cell. The free radicals consider this a part and further interrupt
Here come the Electrosensitives (ES), Electromagnetic Sensitives (EMS), Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS)
Reports submitted to www.safewireless.org in 2002 all reported health effects from cell phones. At that time, cellphones all had antennae that stuck out from the phone. It took a lot of power to send signals between the phone and the base station, so there was a large concentration of carrier waves right at the antennae. This is referred to as a near field radiation plumb. It was recommended that people use headsets to get away from this plumb, and when they did, their symptoms decreased. Fast forward to 2008, where the proliferation of cell phones, cell towers, iPhones, Tablets etc. saturate the environment with carrier waves.
By 2008, the complaints had changed from sensitivity to cell phones to generalized electrosensitivity. Why, because today, in most cities of the world, the difference between the background and the antennae of the phone is NOT discernable. In Toronto, the concentration of carrier waves has increased 500 times.
This means there is no safe place in a city where a person can be without being affected by the sheer tsunami of carrier waves that populate the atmosphere. Therefore, there is no safe level of exposure to carrier waves because there is no threshold where the cell does not react. It is now a fact that the human body, your cells, will experience some amount of damage, simply by living in a city.
If you live in a suburb, or out in the country, the intensity is less. However, as soon as you use your cellphone, or tablet, E-reader, or computer, you’ve invited carrier waves into your personal space.
Solutions to the Problem
Today there are a small number of effective technologies that can lessen the impact of the radiation caused by these carrier waves. A person can greatly reduce radiation from dirty electricity in the home using the Satic technologies. Stetzer filters also reduce radiation from electronics in the home. (See Home & Device Protection for more info) The BioElectric Shield, using physics based technology, generates a protective energy field around the wearer, strengthening their own biofield, as well as deflecting these harmful carrier wave frequencies. In the past, it may have been considered a luxury to invest in these technologies. Today it is becoming as an essential tool for disease prevention.
If you know someone who is electrosensitive or even someone who exhibits some of these seemingly disconnected symptoms, please invite them to contact BioElectric Shield Company.
If you want to prevent issues, investigate EMF protection – NOW – not tomorrow, when you’ve already started to get symptoms.
Virginia Bonta Brown
Occupational Therapist
CLICK HERE for all Shields - Buyers Guide
*Article Information Source: Dr. George Carlo, Ph.D, M.S., J.D, is a public health scientist, epidemiologist, lawyer, and the founder of the Science and Public Policy Institute. Dr. Carlo headed the $28.5 million research program funded by the cell phone industry from 1993 to 1999. Dr. Carlo has appeared on 20/20, 60 Minutes, World News Tonight, CBS News with Dan Rather and The Today's Show, as well as on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. https://archive.org/details/safewireless.orgDangersofthewirelesscellphone_wi-fiandemfage
Photo Credit: Flapping Clothes: From Dutch laundry flapping on the clothesline
Read more about the Satic and Stetzer devices mentioned

Read more articles about Dirty Electricity

West Virginia Refuge: The Town Without Wireless
Green Bank, W. Va., is part of the U.S. Radio Quiet Zone, where wireless technology is banned for 13,000 square miles to prevent transmissions interfering with the area’s radio telescopes, BBC reports. It has become an unexpected refuge for people with EMF sensitivity.
One reporter asks, “So who would want to live in such a tech-free town? For one, Diane Schou, who once lived in a shielded cage designed to protect her from electromagnetic radiation caused by wireless waves….
“Schou’s husband built her what became known as the Faraday Cage, which provides two layers of wire mesh and a door that is sealed shut. She would sleep on a twin mattress in the insulated living space. The couple found sanctuary when they moved from their farm in Iowa to Green Bank, a village of 143 in the Allegheny Mountains.
“Living here allows me to be more of a normal person. I can be outdoors. I don’t have to stay hidden in a Faraday Cage,” she says. “I can go to church, I can attend some celebrations, I can be with people. I couldn’t do that when I had to remain in the Faraday Cage.”
Slate Magazine reports: “The Schous often host EHS-sufferers who want to test out Green Bank. One person who relies on their hospitality is Deborah Cooney, a singer, pianist, and voice coach from San Diego. Her problems began in 2010, she told me, when a smart electricity meter was installed on her house. Currently, she lives without running water or electricity in a simple one-room cabin the Schous built at the foot of their driveway, because simply sleeping in a wired building makes her sick. During the day, she shares a nearby apartment with another hypersensitive person, where she cooks, bathes, and occasionally uses a computer.”
It’s a hard compromise for anyone, because there is so little work in the area. There is also some tension between the new residents, who sometimes ask for additional EMF accommodation in public places, and the old, who resent the influx of new neighbors in their small community.
EMF sensitivity is a challenging condition, often unsupported by medical doctors. (Click here for a guide to talking to your doctor about your symptoms. AM – link to the pdf I attached in the email. The contact info for the authors is embedded in the document.) Culturally and economically, we are dependent on wireless technologies, complicating our relationships and work lives when we try to control our exposure.
Probably the most sensible strategy for the majority of EMF sensitive people is to take small steps and embrace common sense strategies for building immune health and limiting exposure to EMF. But it’s interesting to think about experiencing an environment as old fashioned and pristine as Green Bank, West Virginia. In a wired world, where cell phone service even in a wilderness preserves is present, if “patchy,” it must be an extraordinary feeling.
(Photo: NRAO)
Read more about Electrical Hypersensitivity (EHS):
EMF Sensitivity Stories From Hypersensitives – Resource: BLACK ON WHITE E-Book
More articles on EHS (electrical hypersensitivity)
Note: It's clear we aren't going to be giving up our cell phones, and the cumulative long-term effects may not start being clear for another decade or even two or three. Do you wait until the studies are clear? You could be one of the statistics. We advise using caution and as much to reduce exposure as possible.
Cellphone Safety Standards are off by About a Billion Percent - BioInitiative Report
EMF Sensitivity Stories From Hypersensitives – Resource: BLACK ON WHITE E-Book
Do you sometimes feel like the canary in the mine in your own family, your community or your workplace? It helps to learn the stories of other “canaries,” and find out what they’ve done to make their lives better to heal from EMF Sensitivity.
I recently found this informative and detailed E-book online "Black on White: Voices and Witnesses About Electro-Hypersensitivity, the Swedish Experience"
The book, a translation of letters and reports compiled in the Council for Work Life research about EMF exposure, has many stories of illness and recovery, as well as some interesting statistics and graphs. Rigmor Granlund-Lind and John Lind have done a good job of connecting the letters in clear chapters, and summarizing important information. Here’s one example I found illuminating.
Diagram 3. “The frequency of the most common electro-hypersensitivity reactions (according to letter reports to RALF” – an acronym for the Swedish research organization, the Council for Work Life)
Graft Black on White
(p. 39)
1. Skin problems
2. Sensitivity to light/eye problems
3. Tiredness/weakness
4. Heart problems/high blood pressure
5. Headaches/migraine
6. Pain in joints/muscles
7. Dizziness
8. Concentration difficulties
9. Nausea/general poor health
10. Memory disorders
11. Endocrine reactions
12. Respiratory/lung disorders
13. Stomach/intestinal disorders
14. Numbness
15. ”Influenza” /throat problems
16. Sleep disorders
17. Hearing problems/tinnitus
18. Tremors/cramps
19. Anxiety/depression
20. Haziness/confusion
21. Fainting/coma
22. Asthma/allergies
23. Speech difficulties
24. Irritability
The book’s conclusion? Because it’s a summary of the letters and information from community members suffering from EMF sensitivity, there are many suggestions, stories and proposals throughout. Perhaps the most practical suggestion of all came from Letter
128: “Those of us who suffer from electro-hypersensitivity must learn to adjust the level of the dosage we expose ourselves to, that is the only way to live as “normally“ as possible.”
by Carol Burbank
Guest Blogger

Read more about EMS and some of the ways you can protect yourself
Is technology ruining your health?
Our Ultimate Guide – Tips to Using Your Cell Phone Safely
Seeds of Change: Your Wireless Router Could Be Killing Your Houseplants! (And What to Do About It)