Apparently Orks and Trolls are far more easily infected, and dwarves and elves also more easily, or at least more likely to die from this stuff. Sounds hard to believe, though maybe it's caused by a clash between Sybil personality (mostly humans) and the body? I wonder...
I googled and found "NEMA/Boston" = North-Eastern Massachusetts as used by the Power Grid companies, so basically NEMA equals Boston and then some I guess?