Electromagnetic hypersensitivity
sensitivity to electromagnetic fields
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) is a claimed sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, to which adverse symptoms are attributed. EHS has no scientific basis and is not a recognized medical diagnosis. It is associated with a "variety of non-specific symptoms, which afflicted individuals attribute to exposure to electromagnetic fields". It is generally accepted that such symptoms are in fact of psychosomatic origin. Attempts to justify the claim that EHS is caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields have amounted to pseudoscience.
Those self-diagnosed with EHS report adverse reactions to electromagnetic fields at intensities well below the maximum levels permitted by international radiation safety standards. Provocation trials have found that such claimants are unable to distinguish between exposure and non-exposure to electromagnetic fields. A systematic review of medical research in 2011 found no convincing scientific evidence for symptoms being caused by electromagnetic fields. Since then, several double-blind experiments have shown that people who report electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the presence of electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill health following a sham exposure as they are following exposure to genuine electromagnetic fields, suggesting the cause in these cases is the nocebo effect.
As of 2005, the WHO recommended that claims of EHS be clinically evaluated to determine and rule out alternative diagnoses for suffered symptoms.
The public source identifies “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity” as sensitivity to electromagnetic fields. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Electromagnetic, hypersensitivity and sensitivity.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1437576. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011 and 2005.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.