Subject: (Fist) Skepticism Re Eyes and microwaves (fwd)
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 053605 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@mail.llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1998 14:40:20 +1000
From: Stewart Fist
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: Re: Eyes and microwaves (fwd)
Leif wrote:
> The other week I sent a message from a Swedish newspaper regarding two men
> who were absolutely sure that they had become blind due to the
> extensive use of mobile phones.
In a previous life I was an optometrist/contact lens specialist and honorary
at two Australian hospitals where we saw may people with serious eye
conditions, including many cases of blindness of various kinds. Without
knowing anything about the cases reported above, let me tell you that it is
very rare to find anyone suffering a condition like mid-life blindness, who
doesn't have a conviction that they know what caused the condition — and
almost without exception (except with trauma) that conviction is wrong.
Rarely are they even remotely right. Certain eye diseases and conditions are
associated with certain genetic conditions, etc. or with growth factors. Eye
specialists often don't know what caused some conditions, but very often they do.
I'm just issuing a warning against accepting that the Swedish men knew
anything of significance about the causation of their condition.
The DAGENS NYHETER story about the woman engineer, Ulla Albertsson, sounds
convincing — she was obviously being exposed to excessive fields and has
reason to worry about this, but then the report says:
> The doctors carried out all these operations without ever reflecting why this
> woman had two detached retinas at the same time. She was continually assured
> that this could have nothong to do with electromagnetic radiation.
The cause of detached retina is well known and has been for a century or so.
It is associated with high levels myopia (short-sightedness), cause by
excessing eye-ball growth over many years, and is usually triggered by a hit
on the head or sometimes by a heavy sneeze. This is an over simplification,
but the long-term growth of the sclera (the outer white) places the retina
under strain.
So detachment is about as likely as a broken leg to have been caused by EMF.
When one retina detaches, there is a very, very high chance that the other
will also detach because the growth condition that cause one, will also cause
the other.
So the claim that the doctor never "reflected" on why this woman would have
two, is completely ridiculous. It would be the first thing that entered the
eye-specialist's head after he/she diagnosed the first condition.
Unless there was criminal negligence, the patient would have been rushed to
hospital immediately in a special ambulance with sandbags jammed around her
head to limit vibration and movement. Rushed into the theatre, given laser
surgery to stick what remains of the retina back on -- then monitored daily
(both eyes) for months.
So I'm sorry, but we must not believe blindly everything we read in a newspaper.
--
Stewart Fist - writer and columnist
See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/techno/columns/fist.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/http/sfist/ (some archives)
http://www.electric-words.com (main archives)
70 Middle Harbour Road, Lindfield, 2070, N.S.W, Australia
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html