| A PENSIONER is living in a technological
timewarp after being told she is "allergic" to microchips.
Joan Stock has been suffering from blinding headaches whenever she goes
near a computer or other high-tech electronic equipment for 25 years. And
as microchips have become ubiquitous, she has found her life increasingly
restricted. She is unable to shop in supermarkets, watch a colour television,
travel on public transport or in a modern car, or even cross a road at
a pelican crossing.
As a result, life at the Stock home in Saltford, Bristol, is stuck firmly
in the early 1970s. She and her husband Roy, watch a 25-year-old black
and white television, drive an elderly Ford Orion and use only shops with
manual tills.
Mrs Stock, 79, has never been on a foreign holiday and cannot travel
on trains with electronic doors.
Mrs Stock's allergy has been diagnosed as a reaction to the electro-magnetic
radiation generated by the microchips, whose signals interfere with the
electrical pulses in her own brain.
She said: "It has got worse and worse over the last ten years. Everything
has computer chips in it these days. It is very frustrating because I am
so limited to what I can do and where I can go. It is also very frightening
because it is an unbearable pain that is completely out of my control."
Mrs Stock's GP, Dr David Dowson, said: "Electro-magnetic sensitivity
is so rare, people often dismiss it as a psychological problem, but it
is certainly not."
Simon Best, editor of the medical news journal Electromagnetic Hazard
and Therapy, described Joan's symptoms as classic: "A significant number
of people are reporting some kind of electrode sensitivity. The allergy
is very restrictive. It affects both the working and domestic life.
"Sufferers can fall unconcious at any time. They are also plagued by
nausea, blurred vision and migraines. It is a very serious condition."
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