With the help of experts we have now examined the Essex study and can see that the conclusion made in their Press Release^[3] and widely reported in the media is NOT supported by the data that they present.

In short, Essex University have MISREPRESENTED - 'SPUN' - their Press Release regarding the data and results contained in their study - presumably to please their Industry and Governmental pay masters.

The Essex University Study was initiated by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHR)^[2] and was funded half by the Mobile Phone Industry and half by the Government. The Mobile Phone Industry generates an estimated £1 Billion every month, a significant proportion of which is taken by the UK Government in tax revenue. This fact makes the Study very much open to undue 'influence'.

In summary, there are now many people who claim that exposure to emissions from Mobile Phone Masts and similar make them ill - even seriously ill. These claims were being investigated by the Study:

The Essex Study^[4] was looking at whether reactions of two different groups i.e. Electrosensitives (ES) and non-ES (controls) differed in the way they coped with and perceived Mobile Phone Mast signals 2G/GSM, 3G/UMTS and Sham (no signal). The study was structured to try to show that there was no significant difference between the responses of ES to those three signal types and the responses of the control group to the same signals - this is known as a "null hypothesis". If the hypothesis proved true then that would effectively show that the ES were no more aware of which exposure was which than the controls were.

The hypothesis was, however, actually proved false^[1] in the study, particularly for UMTS/3G, yet reported as true in their Press Release. I.e. Electrosensitive people are more aware of, and sensitive to, Mobile Phone Mast exposures than other people, as they claim to be - completely opposite to what was publicised and reported.

The basis of the study appears to have been altered in the later stages - an unwise and unsound course of action - when it was realised by researchers that the computer randomised UMTS/3G signals were given to nearly half of the Electrosensitive volunteers in the first session. Using a subjective, and frankly lame, excuse that Electrosensitive people must have been more nervous in the long first session, the stronger reactions to the UMTS/3G signals are summarily dismissed. The 12 Electrosensitive volunteers eliminated (in the words of several who withdrew) some, if not all, were made ill by the effects of the exposure to the Mobile Phone Mast signals were likely to be the most sensitive. The removal of the 20% most sensitive Electrosensitive volunteers was always going to invalidate the study, produce a near negative result and match the "null hypothesis".

These are quotes from 4 Electrosensitive volunteers who took part in the study - 2 were excluded from the final results because they had to withdraw from the study because its EMF tests made them too ill to continue, and 2 were included in the final results:-

Brian Stein (excluded): "FACT I used a mobile phone for 15 years. 14 years not a problem, no issues. 15th year. Severe pain in my head and ear, only when I put the mobile to my head. Why is my pain, psychosomatic?"

"When you become hypersensitive to something, it is not confusing, it is not a case of I don't feel well, I wonder what it is, can it be microwaves!!! It's use a [mobile] phone for 5 minutes- pain in ear and head. Don't use the phone - no pain. Use the phone- pain. Don't use the phone - no pain. After you have done this experiment on yourself a few hundred times, it becomes more than a coincidence. ...Believe me it is not confusing."

"I signed up for the test at Essex University and attended the first of three sessions to prove this condition."

"THE RESULT : I have been made permanently worse; I had to pull out of the remaining tests. Although double blind I knew that the mast was on. How, I bled internally for two weeks. That is what happens to me when I get too close to a mast for too long. Bleeding internally, can this be psychosomatic I ask myself? Perhaps my gut has decided to join in on this misinformation? Maybe my gut is in league with my brain in deluding me?"

"The [Essex] tests have been devised so that the people who are best able to prove this condition are precluded. People find it inconvenient to be more thorough. Don't ask the obvious questions, simply dismiss it and trust the scientists investigating this, sponsored by the mobile phone industry. No reason to be concerned."

Volunteer 2 (included): "[Prof.] Elaine Fox said only four people got all six tests correct, I got five as during the first three five minute tests on session one, I stated "not sure" after the first five minutes, which was marked as NO, but on session two three and four I got it 100% right and actually identified the type of signal, so are the Essex numbers meaningful?"

Volunteer 3 (excluded): "I dropped out of the first experiment. They did do a double blind study at the end 5 mins with mast off, 5 mins with GSM, and 5 mins with UMTS [3G]. I was able to tell when the mast was off."

"The biggest inadequacy of the experiment was that it only looked at the short term immediate effects."

Silvia Wilson (included): "It is very sad to hear how the Essex results were manipulated. [Prof.] Elaine Fox is not telling the truth, [in the study] she says ´the evidence is really not found´ [the quote "evidence that ... symptoms are indeed caused by rf-emf exposure is yet to be established." P7 of study] what evidence is she talking about? they found evidence on me and surely on many others EHS [electrosensitive volunteers] , it is so frustrating to realise that they just used us, and gave us so much pain, not only the physical pain when we were under their testing ! And prolong our suffering and keep the profits of the government and industry going."

"I was also shocked to read Dr. James Rubin comments, he is so inexperienced on matters of EMFs and also too young to understand this very complex subject, his own [King's College]^[6] study was not appropriate to find whether people are affected or not with mobile signals. I am disappointed at the BBC for asking his opinion - he is not an independent scientist."

Don Maisch^[7], an independent scientist in the EMF research field, had this to say: "In my opinion the Essex study, though well intentioned, was far too crude in its methodology to find anything significant. I think where the majority of EHS people are hiding is in that growing body of people being treated for symptoms of CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / M.E.] - and that is where the research should look."

Mast Sanity Spokesperson Yasmin Skelt says: "I am shocked by how the results have been interpreted by the Media - even Professor Fox says people in trains get a headache and they just think it is a mobile phone causing it. Now that is way over interpreting the Essex study. The laboratory and questionnaire may be well designed (better than Rubin's non-shielded lab) but the execution of the study and analysis of a very small group of volunteers would suggest that after 5 or 20 minutes some people could not identify certain types of signal. Nothing more. And that analysis was done very badly. What should happen is that those 12 volunteers who dropped out should be investigated further - without damaging them further of course."

"A couple of interesting analogies were suggested to me: A study is done on disability. It is held on an upper floor of a building with stairs and no lift. All the people appearing for testing can walk, therefore the study concludes that severe disability does not exist. Another study is done on lung cancer. People show no obvious ill effect after 1 hour of smoking cigarettes, therefore the study concludes that there is no link between smoking and cancer. Both of these conclusions are obviously nonsense, as are the Essex Study's publicised conclusions. It is science in its poorest form."

"Professor Fox should come clean and apologise for the spin applied to this study in its Press Release and for the anguish caused to genuine ES sufferers not only in the UK but throughout the World"

"And major media organisations such as the BBC^[5] - already less trusted by the British Public than ever - should be more careful in quoting word-for-word from Press Releases without first scrutinising the data contained within the studies they claim to represent, or the credentials of those 'Scientists' that they choose to quote"

END.

Notes and References:

[1] Essex Study Conclusions Open To Serious Question - Analysis by Dr Grahame Blackwell - http://www.starweave.com/essexstats

[2] MTHR - http://www.mthr.org.uk/

[3] The News Release for the study - http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2007/nr20070725.htm

[4] The Study in full - http://www.ehponline.org/members/2007/10286/10286.pdf

[5] The BBC's account - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6914492.stm .

[6] Rubin study at King's College [N.B. The test rooms were unshielded and near to multiple mobile phone masts, so SHAM (off signal) wasn't off at all. Doh!] : http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint_abr/332/7546/886.pdf

[7] Don Maisch's website, with links to other recent studies, is at : http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/