The Essex Study

Update to this article:
Brian Stein testomonial (dropped out of the studies due to internal bleeding)
Authors of the study believe there is 30% chance an effect was missed

The Study
Essex University today published their results of a long-awaited study into whether electrosensitives can detect and suffer adverse consequences as a result of being exposed to electromagnetic fields from mobile phone base stations. This was supposedly the 'biggest' ever study conducted on electrosensitivity in the UK and cost £365,000.

Results
The results were that electrosensitives could not detect when mobile phone base stations were on or off. This means that electrosensitives are unlikely to be able to suffer 'sensitivities' to mobile base station radiation.

Opinion
Unfortunately, this is a completely wasted opportunity to design a proper study into electrosensitivity. The money was awarded to a team of psychologists who seem to lack an understanding of the fundamental aspects of electrosensitivity. Why was this study not conducted by specialists in electromagnetism, toxicology, dermatology and so on (along with perhaps a psychology component). And why was there not a proper consultation with various electrosensitivity organisations? As a result of the study being run by a psychology team, they seemed to have missed certain fundamental aspects of electrosensitivity.

1) Most electrosensitives will not respond to mobile phone base station radiation
Of 271 letters by electrosensitive people themselves to the Swedish Council for Working Life Research, statistically analyzed in the book 'Black on White', only 10 reported that Cellular Telephones & Masts caused their symptoms - 3.6% of electrosensitives. The other 96.4% did NOT list mobile phone masts as the cause for thier problems - citing computers, amalgam, general electricity, chemicals and photocopiers as the cause. This appears to be the most reliable data on what causes the symptoms available today.

2) 21% of the electrosensitive proportion dropped out of the study due to 'poor health'
These are likely to be the most sensitive of all, and more likely to be the ones which DO react to mobile phones masts. This is a serious problem, becuase the symptoms can be so severe as to affect subjects ability to take part in a study (see Brian Stein interview on Rudy & Judy on the homepage). Only 4% of the 'normal' group dropped out.

3) The proportion of electrosensitives who believed that they were significantly sensitive to mobile phone radiation was not declared
They did however say: "Participants in the sensitive group self-reported experiencing negative health effects from electromagnetic field exposure; in particular exposure from mobile phones and/or mobile phone base stations". Why are exact figures not mentioned? Every electrosensitive person seems to react to their own specific sources of electromagnetism, with potentially multiple subgroups and mechanisms behind the condition. It would, for example, be very unusual for someone with VDT sickness/screen dermatitis, to react to mobile phone base stations and vice versa

The study is full of technical explanations and figures, and you cannot fault the level of precision in the results or depth of analysis, so why were the exact figures for how many believed that they would specifically react to base stations not released? The fact that it says 'in particular mobile phones and base stations' means that presumably there were some who did not specifically react to base stations that were included as 'sensitive' in the study.

Likewise there would have likely been people who reacted to mobile phones but not to mobile phone base stations.

The participants should have been filtered to include just those that specifically believe that base station radiation was a significant cause of their symptoms.

Higher skin conductance
The skin conductance of the sensitive group was significantly higher. This... "may reflect either a psychophysiological stress response to participating in the study, or a more general imbalance in autonomic nervous system regulation".

Less chronic illnesses
"Significantly more controls (38.3%) reported having a chronic illness
compared to sensitive participants (21.4% ; χ2 (1)=4.94, P<.05)"

Final Opinion
Mobile phone base station radiation is unlikely to be the cause of symptoms in electrosensitives. The applicability of this study to electrosensitives is debatable, but using the best available statistics that I can find to date (as published on this website 2 years ago) indicate that these results are valid to a subgroup of 3.6% of electrosensitives.

In has long been known that there may well be different mechanisms for electrosensitivity. This study does not have any applicability to other probable subgroups of electrosensitivity such as VDT sickness/screen dermatitis, or those which react to mobile phones, but not to base stations, which accounts for upto 96.4% of sufferers.