Victims of electrosensitivity syndrome say EMFs cause symptoms

Scientists haven’t found a direct link between the symptoms of headaches and general complaints and being near electromagnetic fields. Some speculate that it is a mental instead of a physical disorder
February 15, 2010|By Chris Woolston

The explosive spread of electromagnetic fields across the world has undeniably spawned at least one disorder: electrosensitivity syndrome. Millions of people — most of them in Europe — say they suffer headaches, depression, nausea, rashes and other problems when they’re too close to cellphones or other sources of EMFs. They’ve formed their own support groups, started their own newsletters and taken drastic steps to avoid EMFs, with some even wearing metallic clothing. A band of EMF “refugees” has moved to a valley in southern France to avoid radiation.  The list of victims includes Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former director-general of the World Health Organization. In 2002, when she still held her title, Brundtland told the BBC that she didn’t allow cellphones in her office because the radiation gave her headaches.  In “Full Signal,” a documentary that premiered at the 2009 Santa Fe Film Festival, a self-described sufferer of EMF poisoning says that if someone accidentally forgets to turn off a cellphone before entering her house, she starts to feel ill within a couple of hours. “After four hours I can’t speak anymore,” she says.   read more…

Second Life solving real-world healthcare problems

InformationWeek  10/16/2009

Second Life is a perfect place where hardly anyone gets old or sick. Nevertheless, some healthcare providers are using the virtual world to solve real-world healthcare problems. For example, in Chicago, Children’s Memorial Hospital uses Second Life, with its three-dimensional software representations of landscapes, buildings, and vehicles, for disaster preparedness training, to show employees how to evacuate patients in an emergency.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/patient/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220601119

http://www.nextgov.com/web_headlines/wh_20091016_8307.php

Lithium in water ‘curbs suicide’

Drinking water which contains the element lithium may reduce the risk of suicide, a Japanese study suggests.

Researchers examined levels of lithium in drinking water and suicide rates in the prefecture of Oita, which has a population of more than one million. The suicide rate was significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of the element, they wrote in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

High doses of lithium are already used to treat serious mood disorders. But the team from the universities of Oita and Hiroshima found that even relatively low levels appeared to have a positive impact of suicide rates.  Levels ranged from 0.7 to 59 micrograms per litre. The researchers speculated that while these levels were low, there may be a cumulative protective effect on the brain from years of drinking this tap water.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8025454.stm