Regardless of your belief in—or skepticism about—claims of electromagnetic sensitivity, it’s hard to outright deny the catch-all condition known as “environmental illness.” We’ve been inundated with microplastics and industrial chemicals for decades; some degree of havoc on some human bodies seems all but inevitable. But with 5G towers proliferating and wi-fi ubiquitous, Evan Malmgren’s fascinating feature about EI sufferers flocking to the American Southwest (and its even more fascinating personal twist) invites compassion, not puzzlement or ridicule.
Nonetheless, there are people for whom escape is not only psychologically difficult but physically impossible. Molloy told me that she gets phone calls every day from people struggling to understand and adjust to their environmental illnesses. “Most of the people with whom I interact are living in their cars, or maybe their car doesn’t run anymore and they live in it anyway,” she said. “And that has become immensely harder in the past couple of years, as the prevalence of Wi-Fi has grown in national forests and state forests.” Many sensitives thus see the dearth of targeted EI accommodations as a civil-rights issue. Molloy claimed that she has personally been forced out of jobs over workplace irritants, like when she worked at a day care in California: “I had a great time with the kids, you know, but the people who ran the day care used a dish detergent that made me horribly ill.” She also described being let go from an intake job at a social-services office over issues with the presence of cleaning products, a microwave oven, and unshielded computers.
