EMF and CFIDS

Probably the most informative and comprehensive book I have read on the subject of EMR has been B. Blake Levitt's book, Electromagnetic Fields published in 1995, twelve years ago.

Chapter 10, Twentieth Century Maladies, draws strong connections of EMR to a number of Immune System Disorders: Electromagnetic Sensitivity Syndrome; Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome; Gulf War Syndrome, The Military, and Electromagnetic Pulse; AIDS; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Alzheimer's Disease; and Cancer (brain cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, melanoma, and breast cancer). (Autism, ADHD, and other learning disabilities are covered in the chapter on Pregnancy, Children, and Electromagnetic Fields.) In this passage, I will quote the section on CFIDS, of which I personally experienced (or suffered from) and also recovered from - in spite of the fact that the CDC says there is "no cure." http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/cfsbasicfacts.htm

Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome

Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), is a baffling disorder first reported around 1982 after some one hundred cases became known in the Lake Tahoe region of California. Although no one has an exact count, approximately 2 million people may now fit the Center for Disease Control strict criteria for clinical classification and be affected by the disease. In England, it is called myalgic encephalomyelitis; in Japan, low natural killer cell syndrome. In the United States, it has been called Epstein-Barr virus and chronic mononucleosis - and it also goes by the cavalier epithet of "yuppie flu." Similar syndromes may go back hundreds of years.

No one knows whether CFS is caused by a new agent or an old one manifesting in a new way, but one thing has become abundantly clear to clinicians around the world: CFS is not a garden-variety absence of energy or pep that is causing previously healthy, happy people to take to their beds for as much as two years. Sufferers from CFS report the sudden onset of mild flu-like symptoms, which never quite seem to go away but develop instead into a multi-system disorder of differing severity. Its hallmark symptoms is a debilitating fatigue beyond anything the person had heretofore experienced. People with CFS typically say that one day they felt fine and the next day they could hardly pick up their toothbrushes, so profound was the fatigue and muscle weakness. They add that it is not at all like a normal flu, in which the immune system slugs it out with a viral agent for a few days, producing a high fever and the like, after which the sufferer feels drained but better. They describe CFS as more like entering the twilight zone.

Other symptoms, which can come and go for months or years, include low-grade fevers, sore throats, tender or swollen lymph nodes, heart irregularities, an inability to concentrate, mental disorientation, a range of neurological symptoms that can even mimic psychosis, visual and sleep disturbances, abnormal weight changes (either too much or too little), profound muscle pain, and weakness, as well as a return of debilitating fatigue within 24 hours after minimal exercise that in the past was easily tolerated. Depression often accompanies CFS, but in most studies it has been found to result from, rather than precede, the disorder. Environmental illness or a host of allergies and chemical sensitivities often develop within the first year of onset, including in some cases sensitivity to electromagnetic fields.

There are several theories about CFS, the most likely being that it is caused by a retrovirus (a single strand of RNA that must trick the nucleus of a cell into incorporating it into its normal DNA manufacture), which infects the immune system's B cells not unlike th way the AIDS retrovirus infects the T cells. Some think the virus lives mainly in the brain tissue, thereby eluding most tests. Ohters think it is a deep viral infection of the liver, which along with the thymus gland is the seat of the body's immune system.

Although the agent or agents have not yet to be identified, [it's been over twenty years now], researchers know several things about the syndrome. Something causes the immune system of CFS patients to chronically underreact and then severely overreact. Often it seems as if the immune systems of those with CFS is on constant alert. But no one knows whether this occurs before of after CFS sets in. Some viruses in the herpes family have been found at abnormally high elevations in those with CFS, including Epstein-Barr Virus ( a majority of the population has been exposed to this virus and will test positive for it by the adult years). But it is not known whether these abnormal elevations are primary infections or are a manifestation of normally quiescent infections kept in check by a previously healthy immune system that goes haywire when an immune dysfunction sets in. Most researchers suspect the latter, since the Epstein-Barr virus has been around for a long time. It is also widely felt among clinicians who have treated CFS patients that the allergies they develop are not typical ones, but are based in some neurological or immune-system problem.

Unfortunately, some cancers associated with the Epstein-Barr virus are beginning to turn up in the CFS population. Cancers of the pharynx and the back of the nose (called nasaopharyngeal carcinoma), cancer of the salivary glands, thymic carcinoma (a deadly cancer of the thymus gland), and primary intracerebral lymphoma (an immune system cancer of the brain) are being found in higher than expected numbers. The Epstein-Barr Virus has a predilection for the immune system's B cells, and B-cell carcinomas, a kind of lymphoma, are also turning up. B-cell carcinomas differ from other lymphomas such as Hodgkin's in that they have a strong tendency to infect the central nervous system.

Are there connections between CFS and electromagnetic fields? It is likely that EMFs are a co-factor in the disease process, if not the outright initiator. CFS is widespread in the electronics industry in California's Silicon Valley and along Boston's Route 128 corridor. It affects woman far more often than men. (Among the highest number of sufferers are computer operators, who typically are women sitting for hours in fields that directly impact on the thymus gland, located near the thyroid in the lower neck behind the sternum.) More than a hundred Silicon Valley employees have filed lawsuits against their companies for the condition alone. Many other companies grant sick leave for employees diagnosed with CFS, and the Veterans Administration grants disability pay for afflicted veterans.

Whether CFS will in time be definitely linked with electromagnetic fields remains to be seen, but it bears striking similarities to electromagnetic sensitivity syndrome. And many observations regarding EMFs and the human anatomy appear to have the same imprints as CFS. Given the research on electromagnetic fields and the immune system activation followed by long-term suppression, and extrapolation to CFS is not out of line. Also, consider the findings on EMFs and the nighttime melatonin suppression, and relate them to the common paradox in CFS patients that, despite their overwhelming tiredness, they are characteristically unable to sleep between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. A link is suggested. EMFs are associated with a range of hormonal/neurological effects and central nervous system problems. Plus the research indicating EMFs as co-factors in human disease states as well as viral mutations cannot be ignored.
(Levitt 1995 pp 187-190)

For those intersted In two other papers I wrote, I also draw further connections between CFIDS and EMR:

http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3277817/

http://www.thenhf.com/articles_339.htm

peace

paul