Do you develop headaches when you use your mobile phone against your head? Do you feel foggy-headed and tired after spending a long time on your wireless devices? For decades people have been reporting unpleasant symptoms when they’re exposed to electromagnetic fields from electrical and wireless technologies – and this condition is often called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). As well as those above, symptoms include heart and breathing problems, sleep problems, fatigue, irritability, depression, skin burning and memory problems – as well as many more.
In some situations, the symptoms are problematic; in others they are disabling. Many sensitive people in our network – and worldwide – are unable to spend time in public because of the degree of discomfort they experience from electromagnetic fields in these environments. Their level of physical disablement and emotional distress is extreme.
Alarmingly, EHS symptoms occur at levels of exposure that are well below Australian and international standards.
Now the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) is calling the situation a humanitarian crisis.
The Commission points out that an estimated 3 to 5% of the population suffers from electromagnetic hypersensitivity – representing approximately 13 million people in Europe alone.
Given Australia’s current population, it can be expected that over one million, three hundred thousand people could have EHS, too.
How can electromagnetic fields cause physical reactions that cause distress? The ICBE-EMF says, ‘All biology uses electromagnetic fields as well as chemical signalling. Widely used EMF (electrical and magnetic fields) are new and very different from those found in nature, making them disruptive to normal biological functioning, even at what are labelled as low levels.’
The ICBE-EMF wants to see things change.
‘Our goal is to see EHS formally recognized as an EMF-induced external cause of injury by public health agencies worldwide, and greater recognition of the needs of those who are EHS-disabled, so they have access to safer homes, healthcare, education, employment, opportunities, amenities, and equity of access in all public domains.’
‘Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) is a humanitarian crisis that requires an urgent response’, ICBE-EMF, July 2024,
