Electrosensitivity 



Centers Specializing in real Electrosensitivity,

and Centers Specializing in Electrophobia



         back to: How do you treat ES?



Centers Specializing in real Electrosensitivity

 

Medical science in eastern countries like the USSR and Poland established the existence of real Electrosensitivity or Microwave Sickness in 1964.

Peer-reviewed studies in western countries established the existence of real Electrosensitivity or Microwave Sickness in 2015 (see: Reviews on Environment Health, 2015).

  • There has been a growing number of international specialist centers, including hospitals and clinics, providing both diagnosis and treatment of people with Electrosensitivity. Some are combined with other environmental sensitivities or with cancer treatments, two of the more common illnesses associated with Electrosensitivity.
  • One of the earliest EHS environmental health centers is in Dallas, Texas, USA.
  • A medical center producing hygienic standards and protocols is in Moscow.
  • A leading research center is ARTAC, Paris, under Prof. Belpomme.
  • Many environmental clinics and hospitals around the world also provide treatment for people with real Electrosensitivity.


A useful medical protocol on diagnosis and treatment is produced by the Austrian Medical Association:  "Guideline of the Austrian Medical Association for the diagnosis and treatment of EMF-related health problems and illnesses (EMF syndrome)" (2012)


Centers Specializing in real Electrosensitivity:


  • The Association for International Research on EHS and MCS (ARIEM)
    Association pour la Recherche Internationale sur l’EHS et le MCS (A.R.I.E.M.)
    Founded 2022 in France.

    ​“Creation of ARIEM (Association for Research at International Level on EHS and MCS)” (PhoneGateAlert, May 31 2022)
  • Australia: Clinical EMF Health Testing, Electromedicine Clinic & Research Lab, Frankston, Victoria.
  • Canada:  Capital Health Integrative Chronic Care Service, Halifax, Nova Scotia: "Electrosensitivity caused by chronic nervous system arousal" (2012) Dr Roy Fox, medical director.
  • Canada:Toronto Women's College Hospital, Environmental Health Clinic:  Dr. Riina Bray, medical director: 
    "The effects of invisible waves" (2012)
    ​"Trials and Trends in Caring for Patients with Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity at Ontario's Environmental Health Clinic" (2016)
  • France:  The Association for Research and Treatments against Cancer (ARTAC): "Electrosensitivity (ES, EHS) Physiologically Explained by Professor Dominique Belpomme" (2011) Prof. Belpomme: President of ARTAC, professor of oncology at Paris Descartes University:
    "Our data strongly suggest that EHS and MCS can be objectively characterized and routinely diagnosed by commercially available simple tests. Both disorders appear to involve inflammation-related hyper-histaminemia, oxidative stress, autoimmune response, capsulothalamic hypoperfusion and BBB opening, and a deficit in melatonin metabolic availability; suggesting a risk of chronic neurodegenerative disease. Finally the common co-occurrence of EHS and MCS strongly suggests a common pathological mechanism."
    (Belpomme D et al, "Reliable disease biomarkers characterizing and identifying electrohypersensitivity and multiple chemical sensitivity as two etiopathogenic aspects of a unique pathological disorder" Rev Environ Health, 2015, PMID).
    Right of Reply from Prof. Belpomme: "Electrohypersensitivity" Journal international de médecine (January 19 2018.
    “France: The Council of the Order Wants to Pursue the Physician of Electrosensitive People” (Towards Better Health, January 23 2018)
  • Russia:  Center for Electromagnetic Safety, Moscow:  "Health and EMF Exposure: Protocol for Diagnstics and Therapy" (2010) Dr Oleg Grigoriev, director of the Radiobiology and Hygiene for Non-Ionizing Radiation Laboratory, Federal Medical Biophysical Centre.
  • Spain:  Catalonia: Support Unit in Central Sensitization Syndromes (SSC), at the University Hospital of Santa Maria de Lleida, founded in 2008. This Unit covers fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivity and the electro-sensitivity and is formed by a multidisciplinary team consisting of rheumatologists, clinical psychologists, physiotherapists and nurses. The clinical head of the unit is Dr. Lluís Rosselló and coordinated by Carmen Campoy.
    ​    Support Unit.
    Recognized as Expertise Unit. 
    Congress Mobile Health:  “Médico alerta que intereses económicos minimizan la electrohipersensibilidad” (February 27 2017).
  • Switzerland:  The Paracelsus Clinic:  "Interview with Dr. Thomas M. Rau, by Electromagnetichealth.org about Electrosensitivity" (2013) Dr. Thomas M. Rau, medical director.
  • UK:  Breakspear Medical, Hemel Hempstead: Electrosensitivity. 
  • USA:  Environmental Health Center, Dallas, Texas:"Understanding EMF What It Is – EMF Sensitivity Recognition and Treatment" Dr William Rae founded the Center in 1978 and is its director, From 1988 to 1995 Dr. Rea held the world’s first professorial chair of environmental medicine at the Robens Institute of Toxicology, University of Surrey, England. In 1987 he was awarded the Jonathan Forman Gold Medal Award and in 1993 the Herbert J. Rinkel Award by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine,

     - Video talk: "William Rea, MD, Environmental Health Center, Dallas, TX" (ElectromagneticHealth.org, 2017, 23 min.)

        "The Environmental Health Center approach includes neutralizing sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, but also neutralizing sensitivities to molds, foods and more. They use a generator to first assess what frequencies one has a reaction to, conducted in a shielded room, and then neutralize them using common immunology approaches. And they use oxygen therapies, as wireless technologies cause constriction of the tiny blood vessels and they cannot extract oxygen well. These and other approaches used at EHC can help to lower sensitivity, at least for now. But Dr.Rea calls this 'the epidemic of the 21st century', as the body has already shown it cannot handle frequencies well, and yet we are adding even more wireless technologies to our environment all the time.
         Dr. Rea also says the effects of the frequencies work in synergy with other factors, like Glyphosate, where there is a coherence phenomenon occurring, exacerbating the effects and symptoms.
         Dr. Rea is especially concerned about the cognitive effects from wireless technologies, such as short and long-term memory impairment, balance problems and confusion. He is concerned for society given the reductions in children’s IQ shown in one study where a school was exposed to a cell tower—the IQ went down 5 points. If this happened each year for the 6 years of grade school, he wonders, 'How could this be worse? This does not bode well for the future of the whole world.'"
     - "William Rea, MD, Environmental Health Center:Wireless Pollution: The Epidemic of the 21st Century" (Manhattan Neighbors for Safer Telecommunications, 2017) 
  • USA:  Hippocrates Institute, Florida. Dr Brian Clement: "Electrosensitivity symptoms can be eliminated in 60% of people and significantly reduced in the rest" (2012)
  • USA:  Environmental Sensitivities Research Team, The James Madison University, Virginia.
    ​This studies the life impacts of living with Chemical Sensitivity (CS), also referred to as Environmental Illness, which is sometimes associated with Electromagnetic Sensitivity, and together make up Environmental Sensitivities.
          http://www.mcsresearch.net/
  • USA:Dr Gunnar Heuser MD PhD FACP, California
    Dr Heuser's Testing Protocol includes:
    Interview, Physical examination, Behavioral assessment test (TOVA), Central Nervous System activity measured with functional brain scans (SPECT, PET, functional MRI), Pulmonary function testing, Testing of immune function also as a blood test (some parameters of immune function are impaired by EMF exposure: melatonin, heat shock protein etc.), History and records for causation.
    Treatment: may include Mild Hyperbaric Oxygen.
         Testing Protocol.
    ​      Dr Gunnar Heuser: "EMF/EHS Induced Injury and Sensitivity: Evaluation and Treatment" (pdf)


Research Centers on real Electrosensitivity include:

  • France, Paris:  ARTAC
  • USA:  California: UC San Diego School of Medicine:  EHS Study
  • USA: Virginia: The James Madison University:  ESRT


Centers Specializing in Electrophobia


Some countries have centers, usually in departments of psychiatry or psychology, which still deny that real Electrosensitivity exists and that only Electrophobia, or fear of exposure to electromagnetic waves, exists. This is clearly untenable because it has long been established that some people react to geomagnetic events, some workers are affected near the magnetic fields of MRI scanners, members of the general population experience electrosensitivity symptoms near cellphone towers, the military use non-thermal electronic warfare based on causing electrosensitivity symptoms in their opponents, and children and animals who show electrosensitivity symptoms cannot have Electrophobia, or a fear of electromagnetic exposure, whereas a growing number of children are becoming sensitized.


These psychological or Electrophobia centers are therefore reduced to the very weak scientific argument that so far some provocation studies have been unable to identify people who can immediately act like a meter and react infallibly to all electromagnetic toxins. This hypothesis of immediate conscious awareness is against the established science of sub-conscious objective markers, and electric quantum biology which is non-linear and thus cumulative.  Immediate conscious reaction is not expected of all other sensitivities, such as to sunburn or food intolerances. In fact there have been excellent peer-reviewed provocation studies which show that some people are especially sensitive to electromagnetic exposure, so a known psychological diagnosis was rightly discounted by the WHO. In addition the nocebo effect has been recently disproved for most EHS cases. This leaves relatively small numbers of people who may be Electrophobic or reacting to fear of EM exposure. The established medical protocols for diagnosing people with EHS make it easy to separate out people with real EHS from those with Electrophobia.


Governments concerned more with tax revenues than health, the wireless industry and regulators adopting similar viewpoints, such as currently the ICNIRP and WHO EMF Project, often support or quote from centers specializing in Electrophobia rather than centers specializing in real Electrosensitivity.



Australia:University of Wollongong, School of Psychology: Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute:

Prof. Rodney Croft, member of ICNIRP, and former director of The Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research (ACEBR), a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Center of Research Excellence:

  • "So far we’ve not been able to find an effect of electromagnetic radiation on the kind of symptoms that people report, and this is very much consistent with what’s been found around the world. We don’t have any reason to think that there is any relationship between the symptoms and radiation. It’s important to remember that science can never demonstrate that anything is safe. Be it orange juice or air, we are never going to be in a position to show that anything is safe and thus we cannot conclude that there is no relationship between electromagnetic radiation and people's health. If there was even very weak evidence suggesting it was a problem, then we’d be a lot more concerned. But so far there has been lots of research conducted, looking at very different health effects, and we don’t see any evidence that it might be an issue. That doesn’t mean we should stop researching, but it certainly means at the moment we don’t have anything to be concerned about.”
        (SBS: "Allergic to TV and mobile phones: Is 'electromagnetic hypersensitivity' real?" 2015)
  • "The only known way that RF can interact (and thus have an effect on) the body is through the heating ... It’s true many people report being sensitive to RF from devices as mobile phones and base stations, with estimates varying between countries and ranging from about 1.5% of the population in Sweden to 10% in Germany. ... science has not been able to identify any harmful effects resulting from RF in study participants."
    ​    (Croft R: "Scaremongering on Today Tonight: the truth about wireless radiation risks" The Conversation, May 19 2011)
  • Support for the Q-Link in reducing brain effects from cellphones: "This pilot study suggests that the addition of the QL to active mobile phone (MP)-exposure does affect neural function in humans, altering both resting EEG patterns and the evoked neural response to auditory stimuli, and that there is a tendency for some MP-related changes to the EEG to be attenuated by the QL."
        (Croft RJ et al: "Can the Q Link Ally, a form of Sympathetic Resonance Technology (SRT), attenuate acute mobile phone-related changes to neural function?" J Altern Complement Med., 2002, PMID).


Dr Sarah Loughran, the Director of  The Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research (ACEBR) and a researcher at the University of Wollongong, takes the minority scientific viewpoint denying the physiological effects of EM energy established since the 1930s, as supported by activists in the wireless industry and IEEE/ICNIRP/WHO EMF Project. This minority viewpoint seems to support prior cognitive conditioning both as the cause of Electrophobia or the nocebo effect, and also as the cause of real EHS against the majority scientific viewpoint and a large scientific literature. This minority viewpoint at ACEBR does not seem to accept the difference in the two conditions, psychological Electrophobia (EPh) and physiological Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), although the difference has been described in the literature for more than 30 years. 

  • "no relationship between exposure to these fields and symptoms exists."
  • The idea of a nocebo effect makes even more sense when media coverage and vocal lobbying by those with EHS are considered. The vast majority of such accounts report EHS as being caused by man-made electromagnetic fields. This constant misattribution serves only to perpetuate and reinforce the belief that electromagnetic energy from these devices is harmful, despite all of the scientific evidence to the contrary."
  • "Until a cause can be established, the treatment of this condition [EHS] will remain a challenge."
            (Dr Sarah Loughran: "Can you be allergic to your Wi-Fi?" (The Conversation, September 6 2015)


     Critique:

  • Prof. Dariusz Leszczynski: "Consultation on WHO’s EHC on RF is a sham – decision of “no health effects" was made already” (2014)
  • Powerwatch: Q-Link (2006)
  • Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Study, by the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI), University of Wollongong: under Dr Sarah Loughran, with Prof. Rodney Croft and Adam Verrender (2015 on; part of ACEBR study 2012-17).
          This has been criticised on various grounds. It apparently fails to include the objective diagnostic criteria now used by international centers specializing in diagnosing and treating people with real EHS (see above), and instead relies primarily on subjective and conscious psychological responses which have already been shown to be inadequate in dealing with a multi-systemic condition. Since real EHS has been established as a physical medical condition since 1932, with confirmation in the USSR and Poland in the 1960s and in the West in 2015, it is a concern that there are researchers either still ignorant of such studies, or still seeking to perpetuate the myth that it is not an established condition, or still confusing real physical EHS with Electrophobia.
          Of particular concern are the initial views held by those leading the study, which imply that they are inclined to see EHS as Electrophobia, a different condition associated with a Nocebo response, despite the convincing dismissal of the hypothesis linking real physical EHS and a Nocebo response (Dieudonne, 2015).  Those concerned are psychologists and not medical clinicians, unlike those at most of the international EHS centers listed above.​
    ​      Dr Loughran is a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Environmental Health Criterion Evaluation Committee on Radiofrequency Fields and the scientific expert group of ICNIRP. Both groups are well known for adopting the minority pro-industry viewpoint that all wireless radiation is harmless unless it causes a rise of one degree of heat within six minutes. In 2015 Dr Loughran stated: "there is currently no scientific evidence that exposure to low level radiofrequency, such as emitted by mobile phones and Wi-Fi, has an impact on health" (The Conversation, 2016), although in 2011 the WHO's IARC classified radiofrequency from mobile phones and WiFi as a class 2B human carcinogen. 

    Critique:
  • "Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity study, University of Wollongong" (Stop Smart Meters Australia, 2015)
  • Don Maisch: "Commentary: The Sad State of Affairs with EHS Research in Australia" (Between a Rock and a Hard Place, November 5 2017)
  • Steve Weller: "Open Letter to Rodney Croft" (Radiation Refuge, 2015)



England: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry: Mobile Phone Research Unit. Prof Simon Wessely, professor of psychological medicine and vice dean for academic psychiatry; Dr James Rubin:

  • "This suggests that 'electromagnetic hypersensitivity' is unrelated to the presence of EMF.” (Rubin GJ et al, Psychosom Med. 2005, PMID).
  • “No evidence was found to indicate that people with self reported sensitivity to mobile phone signals are able to detect such signals or that they react to them with increased symptom severity. As sham exposure was sufficient to trigger severe symptoms in some participants, psychological factors may have an important role in causing this condition." (Rubin GJ et al, BMJ. 2006, PMID).
  • "The studies included in the review did support the role of the nocebo effect in triggering acute symptoms in IEI-EMF sufferers. Despite the conviction of IEI-EMF sufferers that their symptoms are triggered by exposure to electromagnetic fields, repeated experiments have been unable to replicate this phenomenon under controlled conditions." (Rubin GJ et al, Bioelectromagnetics, 2010, PMID).


     Critique: