At a time when all those who are intolerant to electromagnetic pollution are fighting, or hoping that this intolerance will soon be recognized and taken into account by the public authorities, a debate is opening up on HOW this intolerance should be recognized. Some want EHS to be recognized as a functional impairment, others as a disease. In either case, the consequences for EHS sufferers will not be at all the same. In his “Open letter to Michèle Rivasi”, Prof. Olle Johansson warns of the dangers of recognition as a disease. We have chosen to publish the text of this letter in its entirety as a food for thought, and invite Michèle Rivasi to respond. – Magali Lesure, Fondatrice de Cœurs d’EHS – Translated with DeepL.com
Open Letter to Michèle Rivasi by Olle Johansson – Stockholm, February 28, 2023
Dearest Michèle,
Long time, no see! I hope you are just perfectly well, and that your work goes in the right direction. I even heard you had your birthday a few weeks ago, so – please – accept my most cordial congratulations to that!
The reason I write you is because I have been informed – by a group of persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity – of your European Parliament Workshop, Tuesday February 7, 2023, from 18:30 to 20:30, in Brussels, Belgium (together with the organization “Europeans for Safe Connections”), to promote the “ECI Stop 5G” as well as to put an end to the 2030 Hexa-X Flagship Initiative of the European Commission, which is an Ericsson/6G vision and intelligent fabric of technology enablers connecting human, physical, and digital worlds, practically meaning no place to hide for – and no future protection of – persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity, as you have already understood.
Your important workshop may end very well for the persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity. Or it will move them even closer to a much feared medicalization. And, as you have also clearly understood, to medicalize a group can easily also psychiatricalize them before we know it. This is not rocket science, but well documented throughout human history with endless examples from both older as well as newer atrocities against certain groups, even leading up to the famous Nuremberg trials which included the horrible ways people with functional impairments were “dealt with” in Nazi Germany. And we never again want to take a single step in that direction, do we?
In addition, I have further concerns about the incorrect statements written in this Workshop description concerning the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity on one hand, and the alleged claim of a “safer use of wireless telecommunication” on the other hand. Any use can only be safe or unsafe, the comparative word “safer” has no meaning, and definitely not for a functionally impaired group. The latter group’s lives can not become safer due to some decisions which they have not participated in themselves (cf. below). In addition, and this must be understood, people with a functional impairment are not looking for a “safer” situation but a completely accessible situation, which is something very different, to say the least.
- Some important reminders and clarification about the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity and its legal status:
I am all the more concerned because I have been alerted by several electrohypersensitive persons about the various projects to medicalize the persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity that have been taking place in recent months in several European countries, notably France, Germany, Italy, England, and Sweden.
They note with dismay that many administrators and chairmen of various associations ask the authorities to recognize electrohypersensitivity as a disease, although this condition is already recognized as a functional impairment in these countries, and – according to the definition given by the special human rights acts for persons with functional impairments – actually in all UN countries. The administrators and chairmen of these associations launch this project on their own initiative without it being a request from all their members. Those who disagree are ostracized and made invisible, their voice and image as healthy individuals, who identify the electromagnetic field(s)-polluted environment as the real culprit, and express a biologically correct avoidance behaviour, are denied. At the same time, these associations which are supposedly defending them do nothing regarding accessibility measures and the defense of their human rights.
It is clear that in the year 2023 these associations run the risk of no longer at all representing the electrohypersensitive persons in general, hence perhaps the constant decrease in their membership. Furthermore, as it is written in the Workshop’s program, if the persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity numerically are roughly 25 million individuals in Europe (and estimated to be at least 350,000,000 worldwide), then we can conclude, de facto, that the total number of members in all these electrohypersensitivity “advocacy” associations (aforementioned) is very small, only a few thousand individuals all over Europe, thus they do not represent the whole electrohypersensitive community, just a very small fraction. Maybe it is time to revive Winston Churchill’s famous quote, but dressed slightly differently: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so little owed by so many to so few’. It just can not be in the names of democracy and human rights that a few should dictate anything for a group of 350,000,000 functionally impaired people – it totally goes against the core values of the UN Human Rights Acts pointing to the individual status of each person with a functional impairment, and that the accessibility needs only are private, personal and individual, however, of course, often with a group-perspective-impact on the general society.
In the program description, you also talk of “people suffering from electrohypersensitivity, a chronic neuroimpairment condition”, which implies you consider it as a disease, injury, or the effects of a drug or other chemical (cf. below). According to the Dictionary of Psychology (!), a neuro impairment is defined as “any condition marked by disruption of the nervous system as a result of disease, injury, or the effects of a drug or other chemical”. Are the world’s current population of persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity aware of this … and of your view on them?!
I am not aware of any evidence for such a neuroimpairment condition, by which studies do you draw that very far-reaching conclusion? The symptoms of electrohypersensitivity are reversible as well as the biomarkers as soon as the source of artificial electromagnetic fields is withdrawn, which means, by definition, that it is not a pathology, but an avoidance reaction to an inferior environment, which is the key definition of a functional impairment. There is nothing wrong with the persons, just the environment, the latter which is your ‘patient’ and should be ‘diagnosed’ and ‘treated’. Period.
The UN definition of functional impairments (see Johansson O, “Electrohypersensitivity: a functional impairment due to an inaccessible environment”, Rev Environ Health 2015; 30: 311-321; enclosed as a pdf) clearly states that my own complete lack of knowledge of the French language is also a functional impairment. Does this mean that you – along the very same lines as for electrohypersensitivity – urges me to be sent to a medical doctor/hospital for immediate medical treatment? Am I also neuroimpaired? And, if so, what will the treatment be for me? And I ask again: and for the electrohypersensitive persons?
It is obvious to any reader that you are not aware of the status of functional impairments, and the fact that they are not looked upon as diseases, they do not have any official diagnoses, and the only “treatments” that are to be offered are accessibility measures (i.e. through removal of, or at least a strong reduction of, the ambient electrosmog, especially in places open to the public) of the environment allowing the person with a functional impairment “to live an equal life in a society based on equality” (cf. UN Human Rights Acts).
I hope you realize that the project of changing the status of electrohypersensitivity will be used against persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity – and not only in Europe, but all around the world where certain non-democratic forces currently are working very hard towards having electrohypersensitivity rather recognized as a pathology, concomitant with forced treatments, and maybe with a risk to instead be handled by psychiatrists and psychologists … and, thus, to lose their human rights … something the providers of the 2030 Hexa-X Flagship Initiative of the European Commission most likely will loudly applaud.
- What can really help persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity?
This would be a practical “Electrohypersensitive Persons Assistance Plan”, where the main focus is to work on accessibility measures. This plan has the advantage to be efficient and progressive, in a few steps, cheap, and achievable in a short amount of time, i.a.to get rid of the wireless technology, for example:
Ban smartphone, WiFi, and other wireless devices, in places open to the public, beginning with hospitals, medical offices, libraries, municipality offices, various other buildings and places, get rid of mobile internet etc., however, all these measures can only be implemented based on an individual respect for the accessibility needs. Every functional impairment is private and personal, and the accessibility measures must always be individually adopted – no average-based, group-related, measures will work for everyone.
Today, any form of replacement wireless technology is not a solution. The only telecommunication technology, to be applied to this functionally impaired group, is completely shielded wire!
At the same time, public phones booths must be re-implemented everywhere – some places have to be done in priority, landlines have to be re-established and wired Internet has to be implemented, particularly in the countryside, again only in concert with the needs of the electrohypersensitivity community, person-by-person.
No white zones for electrohypersensitive persons. Accessibility doesn’t come with any classical Indian reserves, it is to be established everywhere.
Here is a simple advice that anyone assisting electrohypersensitive persons must apply: don’t use wireless devices yourself, disable all wireless functions of all your equipment including professional ones, talk about it, and lead by example. And NEVER call a wireless number! (Do you?)
Of course, if we instead regard the persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity as “neuroimpaired” nothing of the above needs to be done; we just can send them to … whom? A neurologist? A neurosurgeon? A psychiatrist? A psychologist? Please, clarify to whom they – in that case – will be referred?! (As you know, not many decades ago persons with neuroimpaired “illusions about the environment” would have been lobotomized, and sent to asylums for the rest of their lives.) In spite of having degrees in neurobiology/neuroscience as well as having been employed at the very prestigious Karolinska Institute as an associate professor of basic and applied neuroscience, and having published scientific papers in Science, Nature, Brain Research, Neuroscience, Neuroscience Letters, and many others, it still beats me.
Any given disease – as you want to turn the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity into – should be viewed from the point of accredited diagnostic approaches as well as potential treatments, them also being accredited. Which are they? Outdated variants of cerebral imaging and dried papaya? Or soaking their feet in oil?
Furthermore, a single word about the ICD codes of the WHO: As you understand, ICD codes are international codes from the WHO that are supposed to be used to diagnose a disease, however, of course not a functional impairment. Very recently, the WHO has added three new codes that have nothing to do with disease, but identify your vaccination status, which could be used for tracking purposes by the governments, parliaments, health authorities, police, border control authorities, CIA, FBI, Interpol, etc. Is that what you also want to see for the functionally impaired electrohypersensitive persons?!
Don’t get me wrong, if the entire electrohypersensitivity community wants to be medicalized/psychiatricalized, I completely respect that. (Some persons writing to me have expressed great satisfaction with the outcome of the recent Brussels meeting, and I initially rejoiced with them. But then I started to ponder and reflect…) However, if one person thinks differently then we must respect His/Hers functional impairment/disability status.
The recent Brussels meeting gave me a lot of food for thought, and I can not help myself thinking of Pyrrhus of Epirus and his “Pyrrhic victory”in defeating the Romans at Asculum in Apulia in 279 B.C.E. I hope we will not – in the future – refer to February 7, 2023, as a “Rivasi victory”…
As a MEP, you are responsible for your decisions and actions, and you may be judged as responsible in the case of serious consequences for the electrohypersensitivity community. So what reputation do you want to take with you to your final birthday party…?
Finally, I write this to you, dearest Michèle, in the hope you will take it to your heart, with an open mind, and act upon it if you see fit. If not, then I still am your friend. But rest assured that I am not doing this for you or for me, but for the persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity and their relatives. They are far, far more in need than you and I are.
With my very best regards, and in deepest respect, Stockholm, February 28, 2023
Yours sincerely,
Olle
(Olle Johansson, professor, retired – but still active – from the Karolinska Institute and the Royal Institute of Technology, both in Stockholm, Sweden) – https://research.radiation.dk/
- French Translation Coeurs d’EHS.fr – Lettre ouverte a Michèle Rivasi Pr Olle Johansson 28feb2023
- Original in English
Source – Coeurs d’EHS.fr – Open Letter to Michèle Rivasi by Olle Johansson
Observational note from related World EHS Day
In Essence – Electromagnetic pollution (Esmog) is the problem for EHS sufferers, it is “not a disease” from which EHS victims suffer. Reducing or moving to an unpolluted environment, their health normally recovers by itself.
Electromagnetic pollution is not only toxic for EHS persons, it also weakens the immune defenses of the whole population and is a major co-factor in the triggering of various pathologies depending on the fragility of each individual.
