Switzerland: Electrohypersensitivity - a repressed condition

Electrohypersensitivity - a repressed condition
by Pascal Sigg, Die Wochenzeitung, 11 May 2025 - DeepL translation

Kathrin Luginbühl is one of many people in Switzerland who have been suffering for years from symptoms that they attribute to electromagnetic radiation - in particular to mobile telephony and WLAN. Although her symptoms are serious - palpitations, stabbing headaches, massive sleep deprivation - her suffering is not officially recognized as an illness. Scientific research has so far refused to provide a clear classification, although there has been evidence of biological effects far below the applicable limits for decades.

Hadlikon was a place of retreat for Luginbühl, a “radiation refuge”, as the article in the weekly newspaper calls it - a rare place with comparatively low mobile phone exposure. But with the construction of a new mobile phone antenna, she also lost this last refuge. She had already had to give up her home four times before because of newly erected antennas. The courts dismissed her appeals on the grounds that the radiation exposure was below the precautionary limits. The fact that Luginbühl falls seriously ill below these levels is ignored.

Yet many studies show that electrohypersensitivity exists - even if it cannot be proven in large group tests. Researchers such as Andrew Marino and Frank Barnes emphasize that the individual differences are too great to capture the phenomenon in standardized studies. Individual studies, on the other hand, show physiological reactions in those affected - such as changes in the autonomic nervous system or microcirculation. International studies also point to an impaired immune response to radiation exposure.

Nevertheless, official science is holding back - even in Switzerland. The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), which is responsible for radiation protection, relies on limit values that are based almost exclusively on the thermal effect of radiation. Non-thermal effects - such as those observed in people who are electrohypersensitive - are not taken into account. From the point of view of those affected, the so-called precaution required by the Environmental Protection Act is only fulfilled on paper.

Kathrin Luginbühl has been fighting for decades - not just for herself, but for many other people who suffer from similar symptoms but are not heard. She has formulated countless appeals, defended herself legally, consulted doctors, collected studies and meticulously documented her health history. Nevertheless, she was denied legal recourse - right up to the European Court of Human Rights, which dismissed her complaint because there was allegedly no scientific proof of the harmfulness of the radiation.

In the meantime, others - such as the German medical physicist Lebrecht von Klitzing - are successfully researching methods that make physiological exposure to electromagnetic fields measurable. However, neither in Germany nor in Switzerland are his approaches being seriously examined or pursued. Even the new medical center MedNIS in Switzerland, which is supposed to help those affected like Luginbühl, is seen by them more as a reassuring measure than as real help.

What we think about the case

Kathrin Luginbühl's story is exemplary for the suffering of many electro-hypersensitive people in Switzerland. Although her symptoms have been documented for decades and she reacts massively below the applicable limits, her fate is largely ignored by politicians, the judiciary and the authorities. The “Protection from Radiation” association has been criticizing this systematic refusal to seriously address the issue of electrohypersensitivity scientifically and politically for years.

It is incomprehensible that in a country with a legally enshrined precautionary principle, those affected are only entitled to protection once the harmfulness has been proven beyond doubt. Particularly in the case of a technology such as mobile telephony, the long-term effects of which have not yet been conclusively clarified, the protection of the particularly sensitive population should have the highest priority.

The association therefore calls for:

• The official recognition of electrohypersensitivity as an environmental health problem, analogous to other environmental diseases.
• Independent, interdisciplinary research that examines the physiological effects of radiation on an individual basis.
• Radiation-free zones for particularly sensitive people.
• A review of the role of the FOEN and possible conflicts of interest in regulatory practice.

As long as authorities and courts unilaterally rely on questionable definitions of threshold values and ignore independent research, people like Kathrin Luginbühl have no choice but to retreat - from society, from their homes, and ultimately into ever deeper isolation. This is not acceptable in a democratic and caring society.

Source: Die Wochenzeitung / Pascal Sigg

This article was posted on the Facebook page of the Swiss association "Verein Schutz vor Strahlung" and can be read in German at its Facebook link (click on "see original")