Agency conclusions and recommendations
The Agency's expert appraisal showed the great complexity of the issue of electrohypersensitivity. First of all, there are currently no validated diagnostic criteria for EHS, and the expert appraisal found that it is only possible to define EHS on the basis of self-reporting by individuals.
The Agency also concluded that the pain and suffering (headaches, sleep, attention and memory disorders, social isolation, etc.) expressed by the people declaring themselves as electrohypersensitive is a reality of life, requiring them to adapt their daily lives to cope with it.
The 40 experts, who worked on this expert appraisal for almost four years, investigated many hypotheses in an attempt to understand these symptoms. However, current scientific knowledge shows no cause and effect relationship between the symptoms of people declaring themselves as electrohypersensitive and their exposure to electromagnetic waves. Nevertheless, these symptoms, which can have a significant impact on the quality of life of these people, require and warrant suitable care by health and social service players.
To this end, the Agency recommends asking the French National Authority for Health to consider the relevance of formulating recommendations for health professionals to ensure suitable care for people declaring themselves as electrohypersensitive. The Agency also recommends developing training for health professionals on the issue of electrohypersensitivity and training for social service professionals in supporting and counselling people declaring themselves as electrohypersensitive, as well as taking their questions and expectations into account in their practices and fostering greater coordination between the players involved in their care.
The Agency also recommends continuing research:
- by strengthening the interactions between scientists and associations of people declaring themselves as electrohypersensitive;
- by supporting the establishment of research infrastructure suitable for investigating EHS, mainly in order to conduct long-term follow-up studies, while ensuring that the experimental conditions are controlled and take into account the circumstances of people declaring themselves as electrohypersensitive;
- by securing long-term funding for research work on the health effects of radiofrequencies.
Keywords
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) | Idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF) | Electromagnetic fields, Radiofrequencies | Low frequencies