Dozens of Americans who claim to have been made ill by wi-fi and mobile phones have flocked to the town of Green Bank, West Virginia There are five billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and advances in wireless technology make it increasingly difficult to escape the influence of mobile devices. But while most Americans seem to embrace continuous connectivity, some believe it’s making them physically ill.
Diane Schou is unable to hold back the tears as she describes how she once lived in a shielded cage to protect her from the electromagnetic radiation caused by waves from wireless communication. “It’s a horrible thing to have to be a prisoner,” she says. “You become a technological leper because you can’t be around people. “It’s not that you would be contagious to them – it’s what they’re carrying that is harmful to you.”
Ms Schou is one of an estimated 5% of Americans who believe they suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), which they say is caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields typically created by cell phones, wi-fi and other electronic equipment. Symptoms range from acute headaches, skin burning, muscle twitching and chronic pain. Her symptoms were so severe that she abandoned her family farm in the state of Iowa and moved to Green Bank, West Virginia – a tiny village of 143 residents in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains.
Green Bank is part of the US Radio Quiet Zone, where wireless is banned across 13,000 sq miles (33,000 sq km) to prevent transmissions interfering with a number of radio telescopes in the area. The largest is owned by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and enables scientists to listen to low-level signals from different places in the universe. Others are operated by the US military and are a critical part of the government’s spy network. As a result of the radio blackout, the Quiet Zone has become a haven for people like Diane, desperate to get away from wireless technology.
Bob Park is a physics professor at the University of Maryland. He says that the radiation emitted by wi-fi is simply too weak to cause the type of changes in the body’s chemistry that could make people sick. Seventy-year-old Nichols Fox says she understands such scepticism – it took several years before she became convinced that her debilitating pain and fatigue were caused by electromagnetic radiation emitted by her computer. “It’s so important that people understand that this is a very serious disability, it’s a life changing disability. It leads to an earlier death – I have absolutely no doubt about that and I think it’s just unfortunate that this is not recognised,” she says. But even in this secluded part of America, the incursion of wireless technology is relentless…