Hybrids making EMF-sensitive people sick?

Here is the part I liked:

"I turned on the car and the EMF reader. Without driving, the car read 0.9mG. We continued to take a different kind of test drive around the block. While driving the car without the radio or air conditioning on, it read 2.8mG. When we put all the features on (navigation, air conditioning and radio), it read 4.6mG! This was the proof that I needed that it was the EMF's that were causing my headaches and reactions."

I wonder what the strength of the earth's magnetic field is?

 

"... When we put all the features on (navigation, air conditioning and radio), it read 4.6mG! This was the proof that I needed that it was the EMF's that were causing my headaches and reactions."

She certainly doesn't require very much proof.

"Ironically, the more research that I did about hybrid-electric car batteries, the more I realized they were the farthest thing from green. Apparently, the nickel on the Toyota Prius battery is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, shipped to a refinery in Wales, sent to China to be made into nickel foam, then it is shipped to Japan and made into a hybrid battery, now ready for the 2010 Prius. Once the car is assembled, it is shipped to the United States. The point here is that the Toyota battery consumes a lot of fossil fuel during its development; not to mention these batteries eventually accumulating in landfills."

Sudbury? Batteries in landfills, rather than being recycled? Fossil fuel used during development? Then this gem:

"... he extended another great offer to get me into a non-hybrid Toyota Highlander ... The quality of the Highlander speaks for itself, and I was very impressed with my test drive (and the EMF reading.)"

These Highlanders have ratings of 19-22 MPG, consuming far more lifecycle fossil fuel than the Prius she was worried about. I'm sorry, but I can't give her any credibility whatsoever.

 

Where have we heard this before:

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-417227/Toyota-factory.html For those interested in the original junk article.

Guess she won't be joining the Leaf waiting list. All in all, I can think no more perfect punishment than driving a full-size SUV. The punishment fits the crime and we're all happy.

Bob Wilson

 

Several comments

1) their idea of proof and mine very substantially, I would want double blind testing for correlation.

2) if the A/C and radio are producing 3.7 mG of EMF, why worry about the 0.9mG actually emitted by the Hybrid drivetrain? I would want to contrast a hybrid with a similar non hybrid, personally.

3) The earth's magnetic field varies from 300 mG to 600 mG, which either dwarfs the units they were measuring in the car, or the reporter did not know a mG from a MG. (Billion to one difference in US billions)

 

I also found it funny that she started out claiming she wanted a vehicle that was Eco-friendly and ended up with one of the most Eco-unfriendly vehicles possible.

 

Here's the RELAY funny thing. Ms Toyota worry wart can't stop wringing her hands about hybrid non-issues ... yet GM?

New GM Shirks Responsibility for Old Toxic Dumps and Mercury Disposal | Hybrid Cars

She won't give these REAL toxic issues a second thought.

.

 

Perhaps some of us need to register and gently share the facts and data with Ms. Zabel?

I don't mind she finds the Prius not to her liking and I really don't care what excuse she uses. However, the nonsense about the traction battery needs correcting.

Bob Wilson

 

The lady's report of severe headaches whenever she drove the Prius seem legitimate. She experienced the problem, and found a solution in driving a different car.

Who are we to tell her that we don't believe her symptoms? The cause of the symptoms are certainly up for debate, but not the existence of the symptoms. I would point out that the Gen3 Prius uses a different plastic than was used before. Perhaps she is unusually sensitive to that plastic. Whatever the cause, she has a body that can tell the difference between a Prius and a Highlander.

As for EMFs causing symptoms, that is a wide open issue. Clearly the vast majority of people don't notice any effects. That doesn't disprove the possibility of a small number, maybe only this lady, have headaches triggered by the electromagnetic radiation from the Prius.

The few people who have scientifically looked into any biological effects of EMF report that EMF can create voltages of the same magnitude as occur in human neurological activity. I would be very cautious about identifying EMF as a single phenomenon that has only a strength dimension. It's really a combination of many different frequency signals at different strengths. It may well be that only a very specific subset of the EMF has any importance with regard to this lady's symptoms. So the number on the EMF meter is a piece of data, but hardly an exhaustive characterization of the phenomenon.

Her comments about Sudbury are quite brief, and easy to turn up if you want to go looking for that sort of thing. I don't think Sudbury has anything to do with her experience, only some other negative data that she turned up.

So I'm sorry that she had such a bad experience with my favorite car. But I'll accept her report as real. And any additional reports are worth collecting and at least filing away for future reference.

As for my personal experience, I think the shape of the driver's seat has much more impact on me than anything emanating from the electronics.

 

Note that the Times article is from 2008, and (I hope) is not one of the better examples of the Times' reporting.

Here's my post on the issue from '08.

Her article is no better. She clearly doesn't know what she's measuring, it's just numbers to her. She may as well try to measure the field with a ouija board, since she might have at least had some training in how to read that as a teen. Even using her completely unstated methods, she didn't report the reading on the Highlander to compare.

To be fair to her, as RobH says, she had a problem, and tried fix it. On a personal level, that's fine, but it's not fair to then say that it was due to some aspect of her new car that she doesn't understand, and that she had "proof".

But she goes further yet, speculating on the "inflammatory issue" of her clients. Her byline says she's a "yoga and health expert", so how many of her clients that don't drive hybrids also have inflammatory issues? Nearly all of them?

 

It varies, depending on where on the Earth you're located, but it's around 300 to 600 milli-Gauss. Which kind of makes worrying about those kind of levels pretty ridiculous.

BTW. A mG (milli Gauss) is an extremely small unit of magnetic field strength (technically it's magnetic flux density). One mG is in fact just 1/10000000-th (one ten millionth) of a Tesla (not the car, but the SI unit of magnetic flux density ok).

One Tesla is around (ball park figure) of the magnetic strength used in common electrical items like transformers, motors, generators and electro-magnets etc. In these devices the strong magnetic fields are usually well contained by the steel construction (more for reasons of efficiency than safety btw). However if you've ever played around with strong permanent magnets (like out of a motor or hard drive for example) then you've exposed yourself to millions of mG. If you've had an MRI then you've had a full body exposure to several tens of millions of mG.

The field strengths mentioned in those articles are really low and definitely nothing to worry about. I mean seriously, if a few milli-Gauss was actually dangerous to your health then surely a few million mG would kill you right. Well far from kill you most people don't even notice these very much higher levels. Seriously, if it did you could kill someone by just a waiving a small neodymium permanent magnet at them.

 

It really comes down to someone having a commitment to Zabel or her site. I've seen similar postings from time-to-time and depending upon where, I might send a note to the reporter and their editor or move on. For example, some of the Libertarian sites have an ax to grind so sharing the facts and data is casting pearls before swine.

I don't know her and if it hadn't been posted here, still wouldn't. I find it hard to believe she'll be treated as an original source by credible people. So she sits below my threshold but that could change. George Will might decide she is a great source and like his past column that mentioned 'zinc' in Prius batteries . . . well that was special.

It really comes back to the original poster who now has a rich source, heck a full thread, about the problems with Ms. Zabel's article. If they want to share the thread, good on them. If not, I'm good with that too.

Bob Wilson

 

my balls are warm when i drive. :target:


it must be the emf. :madgrin:


maybe i'll just drive naked. :noidea:

 

I have to disagree with the attacks on the competence of the lady. She got headaches with the Prius, and those headaches did not occur with a Highlander. She located this meter that identified the Prius as high in EMFS, and the Highlander as low in the same measure. So the meter responds the same way as her headaches.

Lots of people have ailments that I don't have. And I have a few that other people don't have to worry about. Why is it so difficult to believe that somebody has a unique (or at least uncommon) reaction to something?

I just attended a talk by a researcher who is working with heart rate variability. The usually reported heart rate is the average over at least 15 seconds. But a finer examination of the events shows a cyclic change on the order of 10 beats per minute. A full cycle occurs at a rate of about 0.1 Hz.

Now, the interesting part is that people in fragile conditions have a jittery rate change in addition to the 0.1 Hz basic cycle. Among the potential sources of jitter being researched include the modern electromagnetic environment, which would include EMF. It's not just the magnitude of the EMF, but the jumble of various frequencies. So the earth's relatively stable magnetic field is not disruptive, but the raspy noise of a leaking high voltage insulator may well be disruptive to our neurological systems. This is hardly settled science, but neither is it wacko new age pseudo-science.

The usual approachs to quieting the EMF noise are shielding and maintaining distance from EMF sources. Both are becoming increasingly impractical. Another approach is to provide a weak, stable source of very low frequency (far less than 1 Hz) stimulation. Perhaps future devices with a high EMF signature will also provide a quieting EM field to counteract the noise of the device. Wacko? Well noise canceling earphones that produce an inverted version of the ambient noise are already consumer items. Maybe we need EM versions of what we already have for sound.

 

Up until a few years ago, when I stood in front of the door of a microwave in use (up to 8 ft away sometimes), I could 'feel' a kind of tingle/prickle sensation. I know it was coming from the microwave because if the oven was set to less than full power--where the microwave ran for x seconds, then turned off for a while, then turned on again--I could feel the sensation stop and start in parallel with it. However, since then I've put on a few more pounds (insulation?) and I can't can't feel it anymore.

Or maybe it's just all in my head.

 

No problem here.

The scientific method suggests the next step is to show that similar "EMFS" fields away from the Prius induce her headaches. This would confirm her skills as a biological, EMFS detector. But I'm here for Prius information and this article leaves out a lot of technical details needed in even an informal "EMFS" study. For example, the make and model of instrument and its specifications.

She lost credibility when she brought in the withdrawn Sudbury story and claimed Prius batteries in landfills. This has nothing to do with "EMFS" fields but is something often heard from hybrid skeptics. It relates directly to her self-inflicted, lack of credibility.

Bob Wilson

 

This shows correlation but not causality. Maybe the interior colors of the cars are different. Why not assume that is the cause of the headaches. Perhaps the seat materials out-gas different fumes.

Unscientific experiments are at the root of all sorts of misinformation. People make an assumption, look for any supporting evidence, and then call the assumption proved. As pointed out above, we need some sort of blind testing to prove causality. It's possible that EMF are at the root of this problem, but highly unlikely. It's more likely that the suggestion of EMF causes the headaches, not the EMF itself.

Tom

 

Not to make light of this lady's condition, but does anyone think of the ghost hunting shows?

/Holds up the emf meter: "Wow the emf is off the charts, are there any spirits around that would like to communicate?"

 

I'd like to see how she responds to a Highlander Hybrid.

The scientific method that you suggest makes an assumption that everyone responds in the same way. If there are important variables that we don't control for, then all the other controls and precision are for naught. Confirmation that something occurs multiple times adds confidence to an explanation, but single occurrences are not disproved by an inability to duplicate. A single occurrence proves that something can happen, which is infinitely more frequent than never. Inability to duplicate casts doubt, but it doesn't disprove.

She clearly didn't do much confirmation of the Sudbury story. But Sudbury has nothing to do with her personal experience. Her headaches and the EMF meter are direct experiences. I think it's important to separate observations (headaches, meter reading) from interpretation (it's the EMF of a Prius that caused the headaches).

Nobody seems to be denying that she got headaches. They don't even seem to be denying that they stopped when she avoided the Prius. What are alternative explanations for her experience? If we shout down her explanation, will that make her symptoms go away? Or just resolve our own inability to explain what happened?

It is because of the immense commercial interest in the safety of EMF that I think we need to be extra vigilant about the possibilities of real problems. Maybe EMFs cause everybody a little more inflammation, and this lady is the "dead canary in the coal mine". The anomalies are the interesting cases.