Cellphone Towers Exposed
News from the UK of an interesting experiment involving people who reckon they're sensitive to transmissions from cellphone towers.
"Dozens of people who believed the masts triggered symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness could not detect if signals were on or off in trials."
In a classic double-blind experiment, "when tests were carried out in which neither the experimenter or participant knew if the mast was on or off, the number of symptoms reported was not related to whether a signal was being emitted or not."
But that's not to say the affected didn't experience real symptoms. 'Sensitives' reported feeling unwell and had sweatier skin and higher blood pressure -- both measures of a physiological response. A sort of placebo effect in reverse.
The mind is a powerful thing. If you really believe something's having a deleterious effect on your health -- it actually can!
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Comments
"But Mast Sanity declared "history has shown that many now commonly accepted physical conditions were initially dismissed as psychological".
"Isn't it time that the government woke up to the reality of electrosensitivity instead of attempting to persuade sufferers that it is all in their minds?" said spokeswoman Yasmin Skelt. "
Proof that something is fake won't stop peolpe beleving. Just look at crop circles. People openly admit they make them. Even have directions on how to do it yourself. But some people still beleve they are really from aliens. I think the medical name for the condition suffered by the poeple who claim cell towers are to blame for their poor health is called "mass hysteria". That's all it is, people beleving something so much so that it really does make them ill.
Posted by: Jesse Hobson | August 2, 2007 3:05 PM
In the middle 19th century there was a doctor in England doing very well with his "magnetic tractors". Applied to people, they "cured" aches and pains. A couple of sceptical doctors had some copies made of wood and painted red look like the "magnetic" metal ones. They worked (or not) just as well.
The mind is a wonderful thing.
Posted by: Graham Lees | July 31, 2007 4:31 PM