[Electromagnetic fields: damage to health due to the nocebo effect].
Environmental exposure to man-made electromagnetic fields has been steadily increasing as the growing demand for electricity and advancing technology have created many artificial sources. Over the course of the past decade, numerous sources of electromagnetic fields have become the focus of health scares, most recently mobile phones and their base stations. The predictable reaction to these health scares has been 'more research'. This comment argues that studies of the possible hazards of low-level electromagnetic fields waste scarce financial resources. Many studies have convincingly excluded detectable tangible health hazards. Bayesian logic predicts that the likelihood of false-positive results will be great in studies lacking a prior hypothesis and using non-specific health states as outcomes. The health hazards due to the maintenance of environmental scares by false-positive studies have been neglected. The nocebo hypothesis states that expectations of sickness cause sickness in the expectant individual. Maintaining anxiety by fostering doubts in gullible populations about the quality ofthe environment they live in may cause serious mental illness. Anxiety caused by health scares is an increasing public health problem, which should be addressed in its own right.
Bonneux
L
L
Nederlands Interdisciplinair Demografisch Instituut, Postbus 11.650, 2502 AR Den Haag. bonneux@nidi.nl
D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D040421:Cell Phone; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011846:Radio Waves / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012106:Research