An interview with Leif Sodergren, responsible for international contacts since 1992 for FEB, The Swedish Association for the Electrosensitive (www.feb.se)

FEB: 
What made you want to get engaged in international contacts?

Leif Sodergren:
When I became electrically sensitive in 1991, I and all the others who also got sick, represented a threat to industry (this was a period when office workers started getting their own computer on their desk). There were obfuscators who tried in many ways to trivialise electric sensitivity. One way was to say that this was a purely "Swedish" phenomenon. I doubted this and decided to find out for myself.

FEB:
How did you go about finding out?

Leif Sodergren:
It was not easy not having the use of a computer, but many of us got together and translated some of FEB's material into English. One member could use a primitive laptop in battery mode, so we managed to get the text on a disc. With this material, we could introduce ourselves and also send information to the people who had managed to find out about FEB's existence -- interesting since the world in the early nineties was very closed without the Internet. We were among the first to go on the net in 1994 but at that time it was only accessible to the very few.

FEB:
Are there electrically sensitive people in other parts of the world?

Leif Sodergren:
Yes, we are not alone. Before our website became well known, we had a massive amount of letters from other countries and it cost a great deal to send material so today our website (www.feb.se) saves us a lot of postage and is a more efficient way of sharing information. It has grown considerably over the last ten years.

FEB:
What sort of responses have you had to the material you have sent?

Leif Sodergren:
Many electrically sensitive in foreign countries have felt totally alone with their mysterious illness. Getting a name for it and finding out that, yes, there are other people like me and they are sensitive to electromagnetic fields, has been of great importance to them. I have been in contact with many, many people who felt enormous relief and gratitude. Following that initial discovery, there has been a great need to discuss practical aspects and how to get well. Luckily, we have established contacts, in America, for example, who have taken over the practical giving of advice.

FEB:
Why do you think that there is not an American equivalent of FEB with tens of thousand of members?

Leif Sodergren:
There certainly are enough electrically sensitive people in the US and Canada to form such a group, but I think it is more a Swedish tradition to form associations and belong to them over a long period of time, and keep paying membership. All electrically sensitive Swedes do not belong to FEB, but enough of us feel it is important to belong to an association to show government that we exist and by being a large group we can lobby for our rights. 

FEB:
Do you think that electric sensitivity is better known in Sweden than elsewhere?

Leif Sodergren:
Yes. Most Swedes today know what electric sensitivity is. They have heard of it by having someone in the family or a friend or a co-worker who is electrically sensitive or by reading about it in the press. If it had not been for FEB and its many local groups, we would have been much worse off. I feel that the electrically sensitive in other countries do not have the same support we have in Sweden. They have to fight today what we fought in the 1980's when this problem first started. I would say that there have been thousands of articles the last ten years written in the Swedish press  about people with electric sensitivity. In the US, for example, the press has largely ignored the electrically sensitive even though there are many extremely serious cases that deserve attention. 

FEB:
Author and journalist Gunni Nordstrom has identified a group of Swedish obfuscators, mainly Lidén, Berg, Hillert, Arnetz and Bergqvist, who have attempted to put a psychological interpretation on electric sensitivity. These people have, Gunni Nordstrom claims, written a series of articles in international journals, always quoting one another, leaving out findings that support the electrically sensitive. Has this hindered doctors and others from understanding the electrically sensitive in other countries?

Leif Sodergren:
Yes, these obfuscators have done and still do a lot of harm in Sweden and abroad.  In working for interests other than the electrically sensitive, they make it harder for doctors with a genuine wish to help the electrically sensitive. I have heard of doctors abroad who are very good to their electrically sensitive patients, but they do not wish to have any publicity since it would make it harder for them. We really need a world network of physicians who can share information and give moral and practical support to other physicians in other countries. 

A few years ago there was an attempt to investigate how many electrically sensitive there were in other European countries. The questions were sent to clinics dealing in Occupational Injury. In Sweden anyway, these clinics have a very bad reputation among the electrically sensitive since doctors favouring a psychological interpretation have generally staffed them. They have not been helpful to the electrically sensitive and have in some cases been destructive by not believing the patients and heavily pushing their psychological interpretation. The questions should perhaps instead have been sent to the physicians who actually have these patients but who feel they do not wish to keep a high profile.

FEB:
Maybe the FEB international Workshop for doctors and researchers in 2001, will bring these doctors who treat electrically sensitive patients together?
http://www.feb.se/NEWS/index.html#Wshop010927

Leif Sodergren:
Yes. FEB has received more funding for a similar get-together. It was very much appreciated, and next time perhaps Dr. William Rea from Texas can attend. He was hindered this time due to the September 11 catastrophe. He is the world expert on electric sensitivity. His first electrically sensitive patients were agricultural workers who had been exposed to pesticides. This puts the attention on chemicals as the possible cause of electric sensitivity. Many in Sweden have long suspected that flame-retardants from new computers (they leak more in the beginning) in combination with electromagnetic fields have caused electric sensitivity. This is one of many interesting subjects to discuss. But then we have those who have become electrically sensitive from using mobile phones
so there is a lot to discuss…

FEB:
What is the question most commonly asked by people in other countries?

Leif Sodergren:
They want to know how to recover from their electric sensitivity. They think we have the answers, which we don’t have.  The international workshop(s) for doctors and scientists will hopefully lead us to more answers. The best remedy is abstinence from electromagnetic fields. We recommend people to look into their possible toxic overload since most people do not make this connection. Dr. William Rea in Dallas has discovered deficiencies of minerals and vitamins in the electrically sensitive and that is something to look into together with one's doctor.

There appear to be some interesting detoxifying clinics in Germany, and Dr, William Rea in Dallas offers treatment for those with insurance. Treatment varies in the EU, it seems. An electrically sensitive patient in Ireland has to face a waiting period of several years to get an examination for brain seizures, which are induced by electromagnetic fields.

FEB:
Is electric sensitivity an officially recognised disease in Sweden?

Leif Sodergren
Electric sensitivity is well known and generally accepted as a phenomenon, but not officially accepted as a disease. If it was officially recognised, that we get sick from electromagnetic fields, it would be a threat to industry and the Swedish government is in a quandary here. 
In the mid 1990's, the government tightened the rules for sick leave (paid to people who cannot work due to an illness). Previously doctors could put people on sick leave and disability-pensions with the diagnosis "electric sensitivity" but this was considered too vague (and threatening?)  and it was proposed that the actual symptoms should be used. The effect has been that the diagnosis "electric sensitivity" is used less often and other diagnosis such as depression and burn out, are used in order to obtain sick pay. Who benefits from this word play? It only covers up a problem that the government should face up to.

FEB: 
Author and journalist Gunni Nordstrom has, in an interview, expressed herself in the following way: 
"The government seems to listen to those who have the right message, the message they wish to hear. Sometimes one wonders if the authorities have these reports custom-made or if someone in the background is masterminding all important positions and is handing out investigations to those with the correct beliefs or to the untalented. The independent thinkers get their heads chopped off as soon as possible at any rate." 
Do you find this to be true?

Leif Sodergren:
Yes, that is what happens when special interests have too much influence.

FEB:
Could this have anything to do with that we have a mobile phone manufacturer in Sweden?

Leif Sodergren:
The Finnish equivalent of FEB has told us that the extremely strong presence of NOKIA in Finland has made life very hard for the electrically sensitive n Finland, but we have had a totally different open debate and discussions in the press in Sweden. The kind of discussion of mobile phone health risks you find in the English or the Swedish press, simply do not exist in Finland. You will not find anything negative regarding mobile phones in Finland. There is an eerie agreement to be quiet on all fronts. The phenomenon is fascinating and frightening at the same time. The Finnish population will some day ask themselves what happened during those silent years. The Finnish group for the electrically sensitive is very active and hopefully it will be able to pry open this massive silence.

FEB:
What effect have mobile phones had on the electrically sensitive?

Leif Sodergren:
Ten years ago, the electrically sensitive had an easy life in comparison with today. Those who could not stand the electrified environment most people lived in could find a retreat in a house without electricity, either in the city or outside it or far outside in a forest. Today there are very few retreats left. The Swedish government has decreed that it is a right for every citizen to speak on a mobile phone wherever he or she is. This means that masts and antennas with microwave transmitters are built all over the country. No area is spared. Some electrically sensitive have had to move more than once when a new mobile phone antenna is built nearby. They have no choice. We have some members who are so sensitive that they have no place left to move. Their lives are actually in danger.

FEB:
Is this a problem only in Sweden?

Leif Sodergren:
No. The problem is an international one. We get letters and emails from desperate people who ask us for safe places to escape microwave antennas and base stations. We are at a loss to give answers. A few month ago there was an article in TIME magazine about a woman who suddenly found a mobile phone antenna outside her condominium window in New York. She was not electrically sensitive, but still greatly concerned. She was lucky enough to be an influential journalist who could get it moved. But that is unusual. A safe place today is perhaps an unsafe place tomorrow with antennas being built all the time. I might mention a case in Sweden where a perfectly healthy family ended up with a mobile phone antenna outside their apartment. The whole family got sick until it was discovered (the operator finally had to admit it) that the antenna was by mistake, directed into the apartment instead of away from it. The rest of the family got better, but the husband, a champion bowler, is now so sensitive to microwaves that he has to live in an insulated bunker or wear professional microwave protection clothing.

There are thousands of action groups all over the world fighting the building of mobile phone antennas on buildings or the erection of masts.
For a description of similar problems, I can recommend a US publication called NO PLACE TO HIDE. (Cellular Phone Taskforce, P.O. Box 1337, Mendocino, California USA 95460 Subscription is USD 25 and USD 35 foreign)

FEB:
How long will mobile phone masts and antennas be built?

Leif Sodergren:
As long as people keep using mobile phones. Parents who are concerned that mobile phone antennas are built near their children's school might keep in mind that these antennas are needed because they and their children do use mobile phones. The day people stop using mobile phones, there will be no need for microwave-emitting antennas.

FEB:
When will that be?

Leif Sodergren:
When people begin to experience the ill effects from the microwaves they permit to enter their brains. An article in UK Sunday Mirror, December 27, 2001 describes how scientists have discovered that a call lasting just two minutes can alter the natural activity of a child's brain for up to an hour afterwards.
People who use mobile phones have no idea that their brain is affected on a long-term basis. I am not talking about cancer, which is a fairly small problem. If you get a brain tumour you either survive or die. That is simple. But there are other much worse risks involved.

FEB:
What risks?

Leif Sodergren:
Three Swedish scientists, Salford, Persson and Brun have shown that microwaves from mobile phones open up the blood brain barrier to allow toxins that absolutely do not belong in the brain. These toxins that should end up as waste products in your kidneys, can end up in the brain instead because the microwaves from mobile phones open up a barrier that is meant to be a barrier. These toxins can have a long-term effect on the brain and could cause premature Alzheimer and a host of other illnesses. If a large part of the working population became demented, we would have to say good-bye to our society, as we now know it.

FEB:
What do you mean?

Leif Sodergren:
We already face the problem of not having enough people or funds for our health care. Surgery, like hip operations and cataracts have waiting lists for several years in Sweden and Britain. What if we added a large group of not very old people with strong bodies who were demented and need care around the clock?  Anyone who cares for demented people knows that a lot of people are needed to care for each demented patient. Where do you find those people who ordinarily would do it if they themselves are demented and in need of care?  Anyone with some imagination must realise that society would have to make some important decisions that would not be popular. Also our pension systems could collapse when the active contributors disappear and become prematurely, in need of care themselves. This would leave the elderly not only without pensions but without people to care for them.

FEB:
Do you see any future for mobile phones?

Leif Sodergren:
Only if the above scenario can be avoided. Maybe there will be some medicine that will prevent the negative effects of microwaves. If not, what we have in front of us is a period of discovery and denial when people discover the ill effects of microwaves and the machinations of industry trying to fight the facts. Just think of asbestos how dangerous it is considered today and what a fantastic material it was once considered to be. The court cases in the US are still bleeding insurance companies. Imagine the scenario in the courts, the mobile phones cases will go on for decades, like asbestos, but with a much larger impact, the health of the general population will be negatively affected, the economy will have a serious down turn, re-insurance companies will topple and affect ordinary insurance companies. How can they insure if there is no reinsurance? And a lot more…

FEB:
But how will people get on without mobile phones?

Leif Sodergren:
They did ten years ago. We all used ordinary phones and were quite happy. And the general health was much better. 

FEB:
How do you mean?

Leif Sodergren:
People have very short memories. There was a time when young people were carefree youngsters when 40 percent of them did not have allergies, when they were not stressed and did not to have to use narcotic sleeping pills and tranquillisers or amphetamines  (for the overactive children). There has been an alarming increase of these medicines.  And the increase corresponds with a similar increase in the usage of mobile phones. If you doubt this theory, remember the article in the UK Sunday Mirror, December 27, which describes how scientists have discovered that a call lasting just two minutes can alter the natural activity of a child's brain for up to an hour afterwards. 

FEB:
You will retire from the international work with FEB. 

Leif Sodergren:
Yes.

FEB:
One last question: Will the electrically sensitive finally get recognition?

Leif Sodergren:
Yes they will. Most "new'" diseases that will not go away, eventually get accepted. Also, as the general population recognises their ill health from microwaves/electromagnetic fields, there will be more understanding for the electrically sensitive. It is all a question of time, and timing.
 

Copyright FEB Januari 2002