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Collective Fears

Posted by On the Right on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:05:31 PM
Those who believe they have electromagnetic sensitivities (ES) and other environmental illnesses experience very real symptoms which tragically illustrate how fears can hurt people. Their fears are driven by a string of misunderstandings of what is happening to them.

The World Health Organization’s position is that “there is no scientific basis to link electromagnetic sensitivity symptoms to electromagnetic radiation exposure” and that electromagnetic sensitivity “is not a medical diagnosis.” Those said to suffer from environmental illnesses such as electromagnetic sensitivity most often follow a belief in chi, a vital energy force. But anyone can be taken in by fears that their food, water or air might be contaminated or cause them harm and experience very real symptoms that can even become debilitating. What’s at work is a very well recognized phenomenon known as the nocebo effect. It’s the flip side of the placebo effect and works much the same way. We can become convinced that exposure to even a minuscule amount of a chemical or contaminant can harm our health, just as a minuscule amount of a healing substance can heal - when neither can. The resulting symptoms can be extraordinary and far beyond anything we might ever imagine the power of suggestion could do to us. And when fears of a chemical, threat or exposure are shared among a group of people, the symptoms can spread.

While her bee-hive get-up was the brunt of endless cruel jokes around the world, these sufferers sincerely believe in their illnesses. And clinical ecologist practitioners and lay support groups are quick to reinforce their anxieties. It doesn’t matter how comprehensive the medical evidence or how many careful studies have been conducted or how many scientific and medical experts have investigated concerns, and found no support for environmental illnesses, such as multiple chemical or electrical sensitivity. Victoria Moore, the Daily Mail reporter, reiterated the lack of scientific support for these sensitivities to modern life:

 Epidemiological research is endlessly easy to manipulate to conclude pretty much whatever a researcher wants to find, and it’s a favorite and fertile technique for just about any entity with an agenda. [Look at the nonstop fears associated with obesity!] “‘Health’ is a surrogate for their real interests,” said Dr. James LeFanu, M.D. in “Body Politics” published in a 1994 issue of GQ Magazine:

As we’ve explored here and here, what’s at work is the nocebo effect. It’s the flip side of the placebo effect and works much the same way. We can become convinced that exposure to even a minuscule amount of a contaminant can harm our health, just as a minuscule amount of a healing substance can heal. Alternative practitioners, including clinical ecologists and energy modalities, largely rely on these very real effects. As House showed, when we understand that there is really nothing to fear, our symptoms will go away and we can keep ourselves from being taken in.

This may sound like an isolated case, but state disability rosters are filled with people unable to work because of chemical sensitivity, “sick building syndrome” and chronic fatigue for which medical experts have determined there is no causative agent. These poor people are really suffering and are very difficult for doctors to treat. But countless experts and well-conducted investigations (such as the scientific expert analyses conducted by the American Medical Association, the California Medical Board and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology already discussed here) have found no support for the explanations made by proponents for the vast array of symptoms experienced by most of these patients.

This is why many in the medical community believe it’s unethical to promote or use alternative modalities that lack a scientifically plausible rationale or to reinforce unsubstantiated fears. Instead, these sufferers need our help understanding that their diagnoses are labels, not actual diseases, and that stress and fears can often lead to symptoms. As doctors Ronald E. Gots, M.D., Ph.D., and Stephen Barrett, M.D., wrote in Chemical Sensitivity:

Clinical ecology patients run the risks of misdiagnosis, mistreatment, financial exploitation, and/or delay of proper medical and psychiatric care. In addition, insurance companies, employers, educational facilities, homeowners, and other taxpayers, and ultimately all citizens are being burdened by dubious claims for disability and damages.

If you know someone suffering from an environmental illness, you know how heartbreaking it is to watch and how hard it can be to help them. Doctors Gots and Barrett advise families and friends to realize the symptoms are the result of stress and not get taken in by them, too, or be led to financial ruin. They suggest helping loved ones get away from clinical ecologists and to a good medical doctor and mental health practitioner.  They advise educators not to make accommodations for children whose parents believe them to have multiple chemical sensitivities because it reinforces false messages to children about their health. The potential for harm to children (and adults) convinced that chemicals or bad foods can make them behave a certain way or get sick, “undermines their self esteem by implanting notions that they are unhealthy and fragile,” isolates them from others, and prevents them from receiving appropriate medical care. They advise insurance companies to not subsidize unsound diagnostic and treatment methods. They advise legislators to stop funding research or practices with hypotheses that are not plausible, testable or likely to produce information that is medically helpful. They advise the media to stop glorifying these sufferers, repeating unsound conjectures and fears, or encouraging readers to see clinical ecologists. Doing so, they said, has “great potential for harm.” They concluded: “Public information should be based on established fact, not speculation.”




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