SCIENCE & TECH: ‘DoctorEMF’ wants you to unplug lamps, routers to preserve health

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIF. — “Better Call Saul” ended two years ago, but you could have fooled the audience at last week’s Biohackers World conference.

Russell Kort, 59, took the stage at the swanky 1 Hotel West Hollywood — and immediately asked the crowd to switch their smartphones to airplane mode to disable their wireless and cellular capabilities.

The chiropractor-turned-scholar of electromagnetic fields (EMFs), who goes by “DoctorEMF,” described how he becomes impaired with exposure to wireless technology.

Though he wasn’t ensconced in a space blanket, Kort brings to mind Michael McKean’s brilliant but haunted character on “Better Call Saul.” Chuck McGill suffered from EMF hypersensitivity (EHS), which made him extra vigilant about the electronics he encountered.

EHS is not a universally accepted diagnosis within mainstream medicine — its symptoms are often attributed to other factors. While EHS largely has been avoided in medical books, “Better Call Saul” helped give it visibility.

And EMF protection has become a big business. Special curtains, blankets, phone stickers, jackets — underwear, too! — have flooded the market despite doubts that they absorb or deflect radiation emitted by Wi-Fi modems, Bluetooth devices, smart meters, cell towers, microwaves and mobile phones.

Kort took precautions even further, welcoming Kaizen in 2019 when he was around 7 weeks old.

“Kaizen is the first EMF hypersensitivity dog in the world, and he works directly for me,” Kort said. “He’s watching, and he’s also being affected.”

Kort said he trained the Aussie blue healer for nine months, and a professional worked with him for six months. The process was “pretty brutal.”

“We took eight cell phones and put them around my heart — on YouTube on high volume, had me hold a really nasty, powerful cell phone and threw a ball at me,” Kort recalled.

Kort was peppered with math questions “until I started having a mental breakdown” and experienced a loss of motor functions.

“Every 10 minutes, they’d do a sweat sample of my skull,” he said, adding that samples were also taken from his hands and frozen.

“They used those samples to test [Kaizen] for six months, and they’d have him run into a room and smell different containers,” Kort explained. “And when he smelled that, then he would start barking.”

Kaizen was well-behaved throughout Kort’s 30-minute talk, presumably because most phones had been holstered.

We know that cell phones aren’t great for the body or mind. Excessive screen time can negatively affect sleep, cognitive function, mental health and physical well-being.

Research is ongoing, but the scientific consensus is that there’s no definitive proof that exposure to radio frequency energy from cell phones causes health problems. There are anecdotal reports.

Kort said his EHS manifests as trouble focusing, brain fog and headaches. Disorientation turns to irritability, severe malaise and even loss of consciousness.

“I’m the kind of guy who’s no fun at a party watching TV because the Wi-Fi puts me out,” Kort shared.

He likens radiation-emitting devices to bees, telling the audience about the time he was stung by 25 to 30 bees while taking a grassy shortcut as a boy.

Kort, who said he worked in the cell phone industry in the late 1980s and began noticing symptoms in 1999, emphasized the need to reduce exposure. He suggested unplugging bedside lamps before going to sleep as well as wireless routers.

And don’t even think about charging your phone by your bed at night. He insisted that it needs to be turned off and far away.

“We have an epidemic here, and I believe this is going to be the biggest catastrophic health crisis our planet has ever seen,” Kort declared. “We are at a pivotal time in history.”

As public awareness grows, a leading radiation researcher warns of “a Wild West of [EMF] claims with little guidance.”

“There is a lack of proper testing for wireless radiation and EMF ‘protection’ products, and more importantly, for the safety of wireless technology itself,” Theodora Scarato — director of the Wireless and EMF Program at Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit news and science organization — told The Post. “Regulatory reform is urgently needed.”

Kort — who chairs the medical and scientific advisory board at DefenderShield, which specializes in EMF-blocking gear — was asked by an audience member about the efficacy of anti-radiation phone stickers.

“I don’t know about the stickers and so forth that we put on our phones, because I have a case that I use, and this seems to work pretty well for me,” he shrugged. “Also, I don’t put it in my front pocket, I put it down lower.”

He also hawks the WAVwatch, which boasts EMF-free sound frequency to promote healing (the 2.0 version sells for $697). He called it “another one of my secret weapons that helps me to live the life that I’m in.”

Kort did not respond to a Post request for comment and canceled a scheduled interview at Biohackers World — a press assistant mumbled something about the energy not being right.