Sunday Times 2
Could Wifi be harming your health?
The list of places off-limits to Mary Coales is extensive. The 63-year-old can’t go to theatres, restaurants, cinemas, airports, or parks.
If she has a hospital appointment, she has to wait outside the building until the very last moment, while trips to the supermarket are conducted at lightning speed.
Worried that wifi may harm you? Sit 1m or more from the router and avoid using your laptop on your lap (AFP)
Even walking down the road outside her house can cause a terrible shooting pain in her mouth – which is why, whenever she goes out, she wears a top made from a special gauzy silver and polyamide material.
To passers-by, the Cambridge graduate and former high-flying civil servant may look odd, but she insists that the fabric – called Aaronia Shield – is the only way she can protect herself from the radiation caused by wifi and mobile phone signals.
Like increasing numbers of people, Mary believes she suffers from electromagnetic hypersensitivity intolerance syndrome (EHS) – in other words, she thinks the electronic devices most of us rely on in our everyday lives are making her ill.
These range from mobile phones to television screens and even light bulbs. The waves are a form of non-ionising radiation, designed to be too low in frequency to affect people.
However, EHS sufferers believe this low-level radiation is capable of causing harm, and report symptoms ranging from headaches, lethargy and nausea to breathing difficulties and even paralysis. They also fear the radiation may cause cancer, autoimmune diseases and neurological disorders in the long-term.
‘Before I developed EHS in 2012, I wouldn’t have believed the condition existed,’ says Mary. ‘The idea of becoming ill because of the technology I’d used for years without previously having any problems is surreal.
© Daily Mail, London