UK health agency positon on ES

Below is part of an article from a British paper, then of a critique of
the UK HPA. At least the UK HPA has made a statement recognizing that
EMF/EMR affects human health. The USA govn. remains very laggard, under heavy
influence of industry and present administration.


The Sunday Times -Britain
September 11,2005

A GOVERNMENT agency has acknowledged for the first time that people
can suffer nausea, headaches and muscle pains when exposed to
electromagnetic fields from mobile phones, electricity pylons and
computer screens.
The Health Protection Agency has now reviewed all scientific literature on
electrosensitivity and concluded that it is a real syndrome.
The condition known as electrosensitivity, a heightened reaction to
electrical energy, will be recognised as a physical impairment.
…. Britain will follow Sweden where electrosensitivity was
recognised as a physical impairment in 2000. About 300,000 Swedish men
and women are sufferers.

Critique from Powerwatch:
on the 28th October, the HPA published another report on the burden of
disease in the UK, that included: "A small percentage of the population mayexpress
an increased sensitivity to a range of electric and magnetic fields with
symptoms including: skin sensitivity, dizziness, headache and fatigue. Thishas not
been quantified but the symptoms and increased levels of stress and anxiety
will contribute to health costs". This is a tacit acknowledgement of the
problem of EHS, and its possible implications for an overburdened health service.
So, what is being done to investigate it?
….when Mike Repacholi (of WHO's EMF project) was recently reported in New
Scientist (10th September 2005, page 14) as saying that "the worst effects of the
Chernobyl nuclear accident are mental health problems brought on by too much
worry", we do have to wonder what is going on in the minds of the people in
charge of investigating these matters.
Perhaps a clue could be a sentence, discussing potential future research,
from an HPA representative in a paper delivered at the Electrical
Hypersensitivity Workshop in Prague, 2004: "An acceptance that EMF has a causal role in ES
would have widespread implications for future policy on prevention and
management." Maybe the HPA know that the report is going to show EHS to be a real,
debilitating health condition that is affecting a significant proportion ofthe
country's population? They are fully aware of the likelihood that the public
will want someone to be held accountable, not only for the causation of the
problem, but for providing the solution. Is it this accountability that they are
trying to avoid? Of course, if the government's Health Protection Agency are
unwilling to be accountable for the protection of the UK population's health from
the effects of EMFs, who will? Surely that is what the HPA is for?


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