http://www.Cellphonelies.com Electrohypersensitivity: Observations in the Human Skin of a Physical Impairment by Olle Johansson, associate professor The Experimental Dermatology Unit Department of Neuroscience Karolinska Institute 171 77 Stockholm Sweden. An ever increasing number of studies have clearly shown various biological effects at the cellular level of electromagnetic fields, including powerfrequency and radiofrequency ones as well as microwaves. Such electromagnetic fields are present in your everyday life, at the workplace, in your home and at places of leisure. Recently, a new category of persons with a physical impairment (electrohypersensitivity; EHS) has been described in the literature, namely those that claim to suffer from subjective and objective skin- and mucosa-related symptoms, such as itch, smarting, pain, heat sensation, redness, papules, pustules, etc., after exposure to visual display terminals (VDTs), mobile phones, DECT telephones, as well as other electromagnetic devices. Frequently, symptoms from internal organ systems, such as the heart and the central nervous system, are also encountered. Persons claiming such adverse skin reactions after having been exposed to computer screens or mobile phones very well could be reacting in a highly specific way and with a completely correct avoidance reaction, especially if the provocative agent was radiation and/or chemical emissions -- just as you would do if you had been exposed to e.g. sun rays, X-rays, radioactivity or chemical odours. The working hypothesis, thus, early became that they react in a cellularly correct way to the electromagnetic radiation, maybe in concert with chemical emissions such as plastic components, flame retardants, etc., something later focussed upon by Professor Denis L. Henshaw and his collaborators at Bristol University [This is also covered in great depth in Gunni Nordström's new book "The Invisible Disease - The Dangers of Environmental Illnesses caused by Electromagnetic Fields and Chemical Emissions" (O Books, 2004, ISBN 1-903816-71-8).] Very soon, however, from different clinical colleagues, and in parallel to the above, a large number of other 'explanations' became fashionable, e.g. that the persons claiming EHS only were imagining this, or they were suffering from post-menopausal psychological abberations, or they were old, or having a short school education, or were the victims of classical Pavlovian conditioning or a journalist-driven mass media psychosis. Strangely enough, most of the, often self-made, 'experts' who proposed these explanations had themselves never met anyone claiming EHS and these 'experts' had never done any investigations of the proposed explanatory models. The aim of our own studies has been to investigate possible alterations, in the cellular and neuronal systems of these persons' skin. As controls, age- and sex-matched persons without any subjective or clinical symptoms or dermatological history, have served. Immunohistochemistry using antisera to the previously characterized marker substances of interest has been utilized. Among many discoveries, the following may be mentioned: We have investigated the presence of intraepidermal nerve fibers in normal human skin from healthy volunteers using the new marker PGP 9.5 (Wang et al., 1990; Hilliges et al., 1995; Johansson et al. 1999). The intraepidermal nerve fibers are found as close as 20-40 µm from the surface, which makes it highly possible that weak electromagnetic fields may affect them. In facial skin samples of electrohypersensitive persons, the most common finding is a profound increase of mast cells. Nowadays we do not only use histamine, but also other mast cell markers such as chymase and tryptase, but the pattern is still the same as reported previously for other electrohypersensitive persons (Johansson and Liu, 1995). From these studies, it is clear that the number of mast cells in the upper dermis is increased in the EHS group. A different pattern of mast cell distribution also occurred in the EHS group, namely, the normally empty zone between the dermo-epidermal junction and mid-to-upper dermis disappeared in the EHS group and, instead, this zone had a high density of mast cell infiltration. These cells also seemed to have a tendency to migrate towards the epidermis (=epidermiotrophism) and many of them emptied their granular content (=degranulation) in the dermal papillary layer. Furthermore, more degranulated mast cells could be seen in the dermal reticular layer in the EHS group, especially in those cases which had the mast cell epidermiotrophism phenomenon described above. Finally, in the EHS group, the cytoplasmic granules were more densely distributed and more strongly stained than in the control group, and, generally, the size of the infiltrating mast cells was found to be larger in the EHS group as well. It should be noted, that increases of similar nature later on were demonstrated in an experimental situation employing normal healthy volunteers in front of visual display units, including ordinary house-hold television sets (Johansson et al., 2001). http://www.Cellphonelies.com

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