Electrohypersensitivity: Letter to the Director of the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health

The following letter, addressed to the Director of the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health, Mr. Pascal Strupler, was written by the creator of the new site « Gigasmog » (located in La Neuveville in French-speaking Switzerland).  The purpose of the site is to inform about the (potential) danger of using wireless technologies everywhere and under all conditions.  “We are also going to attempt to show how a person who has become electrohypersensitive (EHS) is able to, in spite of this serious handicap, to remain with his/her family and assume essential tasks.”

Letter to Mr. Strupler, Director of the Federal Office for Public Health, 10 March 2013

Dear Sir :

You hold the future health of several hundreds of thousands of citizens of this country in your hands!

Urgent measures need to be taken concerning electromagnetic fields, especially in the hyperfrequencies of UHF and microwaves.

I invite you to read what follows…

*** ONE CASE AMONG MANY***

For several years, I have seen my health diminish, in spite of a healthy lifestyle and good physical condition. I was then 46 years old. Multiple physical and functional disorders appeared, such as sleep disturbances, tinnitus, chronic headaches, dizziness, fainting, cardiac and muscular palpitations, mood disturbances with apathy following outbursts of anger, purpura, bleeding of the gums, tooth aches, decline in blood count (cholesterols), regular lowering of thrombocytes, loss of body mass, etc.

After a difficult and lengthy reflection and many consultations and medical analyses, I have begun to protect myself from the high-frequency electromagnetic fields of mobile phones and other devices.

The only change in my life-style has been to protect myself from electromagnetic radiation. From then on, the physiological parameters set out below have returned to normal and the functional troubles have all disappeared with the exception of tinnitus. My body weight has return to what it was – normal.

Blood test results provide clear evidence that electrosmog affects my body: the relationship between LDL and HDL has returned to normal, as it was when I was 30 (the “good cholesterol has doubled and the “bad” has decreased one-third), the thrombocytes, which since 2005 were decreasing and had reached the lowest limit allowable without the hematologist being able to explain the cause, have risen by 11’000 in six months.

Out of 7 physicians consulted, there were two (including the hematologist) who admitted not knowing precisely the effects of microwaves on human physiology and two others who recognized that microwaves could have a harmful effect depending on the individual. The other doctors as a whole denied everything.

The EHS syndrome is not a mental illness and that has been confirmed by a professional psychologist whom I consulted at the recommendation of my family doctor. The psychologist is certain about this. The only advice he could give me is to accept others staring at my protective clothing or accept to be more or less excluded from society which has created this electronic pollution.

***CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIC EXCLUSION***

Passive telephony is a problem that leads to social exclusion of a person suffering from EHS.

The civic consequences are extremely serious and include:

-major damage to health
-deprivation of freedom of dress due to the obligatory wearing of protective clothing covering the whole body, including the head, and even in summer temperatures
-deprivation of geographical freedom in the city as well as the country due to multiple coverage (at least three operators) of our territory by mobile telephony
-deprivation of citizen’s rights, given that all public offices, courts, stations, the police, hospitals, schools, etc. have WiFi installations, cordless DECT phones, without counting the cell phones of the personnel.
-loss of paid employment (which has been my case)
-marital problems, separation or divorce
-impossibility of assuming part of parental responsibilities
-etc.

***NUMEROUS OTHER CASES***

During the several months I have been talking about this to people around me, I have identified in my immediate entourage at least eight persons who are suffering the same ill-EHS-, although more moderately than me.

The latest report, « 2012 Health Statistics » (Statistiques de la santé 2012) from our statistics office, based on 2007 figures, announces that 7% of the population is suffering from waves (page 21) and 18% of households consider being affected by disturbances related to waves.
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/news/publikationen.html?publicationID=5028

And these are figures from 2007, that is, at least 6 years ago. Knowing that the level of exposure is growing at around 40% per year, we are today at a level of exposure at least three times higher.

Other sources estimate in 2012 that 8.3% of the population in developed countries is experiencing the serious symptoms of electro-hypersensitivity (EHS), while 35% presents benign symptoms, according to Dr. Thomas Rau, Medical Director of the world-renowned Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland. Electromagnetic fields are an unsuspected factor in many illnesses.

The recent German study of Klaus Buchner and Horst Eger « Changes of Clinically Important Neurotransmitters under the Influence of Modulated RF Fields – A Long-term Study under Real-life Conditions" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/63835313/Changes-of-Clinically-Important-Neurotransmitters-under-the-Influence-of-Modulated-RF-Fields) which is reminiscent of the "Schwazenburg Shut-down study"… (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16342198)

+Do you not see an epidemic/pandemic looming on the horizon?

You know that neighboring countries recognize the condition of EHS as a disease or a handicap. For example, Sweden, German, Canada, Austria, and Spain, I believe.

+Why do our authorities systematically deny this illness by stigmatizing those who are suffering from it, treating them as psychosomatic cases, which adds to their suffering?

***TAKE EFFECTIVE ACTION NOW !***

Also, I am asking you to act effectively and with urgency, through concrete measures, to have this environmental “disease” be taken charge of by physicians and health or disability insurance, including protective clothing and reflective material for windows, apartment walls, furniture, and vehicles.

You also know that WHO has classified electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic, along with chloroform, DDT or lead, sales of the first two being banned in Switzerland:

http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/ClassificationsAlphaOrder.pdf
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol102/index.php
Also, you have certainly read that the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has equally sounded the alarm in 2012 : http://aaemonline.org/emf_rf_position.html

Thus, by the present letter, under the Federal Law on elimination of inequalities affecting handicapped persons (RS 151.3) which stipulated:

Art. 1 Purpose
1 The purpose of the current law is to prevent, reduce or eliminate the inequalities which affect handicapped persons.
2 It creates the conditions necessary for facilitating the participation in social life of handicapped persons, by assisting them notably to be autonomous in the establishment of social contacts, in the achievement of training, and in the exercise of a professional activity.

I am asking you imperatively to take the following measures, regarding your intervention at the OFCOM and other implicated departments:

Lowering the values permitted on the Swiss territory in accordance with the BioInitiative Report which was adopted by Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe –

Recognizing the danger and recommending lowering of the thresholds of exposure of relay antennas to 0.6V/m then 0.2V/m – of May 2011.
http://assembly.coe.int/mainf.asp?link=/documents/adoptedtext/ta11/eres1815.htm

I remain at your disposition to furnish you with further information from the point of view of an “insider”, if you wish.

Certain that you as much as I are keen to avoid a major health scandal in our country, I urge you to take adequate measures before the magnitude of the damages becomes unbearable for our fellow citizens, I send you my regards, filled with hope.

Sosthène BERGER

Reply from OFSP:

We leave you to appreciate the 21 March reply from Dr. Charrière, Acting Director of the Federal Office for Public Health:

Hello,

We have received your request of 10 March 2013 concerning electrosensitivity and thank you.

Electrosensitivity is a subject to which we attach much importance. In 2004 and 2005, we conducted a survey of this subject among physicians and the population:
(http://www.bag.admin.ch/themen/strahlung/00053/02644/index.html?lang=fr).

In addition, in 2012, the Federal Office of the Environment published a report on electromagnetic hypersensitivity. This report highlights that at the present time there is no diagnostic criteria recognized by physicians and that scientific methods have still not been able to confirm the existence of a cause and effect relationship between daily exposure to electromagnetic fields and the symptoms of electrosensitive persons. The question of knowing whether this relationship really exists in certain cases remains however open. Indeed, the simple fact of anticipating exposure can sometimes make symptoms appear or reinforce them. This is what we call the nocebo effect.

You will find attached the cited report.

If you wish to ease your symptoms, we recommend that you request advice from the association Physicians in Favor of the Environment. This network has vast experience with health problems related to environmental pollution and can also carry out measurements.
http://www.aefu.ch/themes/reseau-de-conseil-en-medecine-environnementale/?L=1

Hoping that this information is useful to you, with best regards,

Dr. Roland Charrière
Acting Director

(translated from French by Meris Michaels)