Sintomatologia soggettiva aspecifica riferita ai campi elettromagnetici: descrizione di due casi.

In Italy, as in several other countries, an apparently increasing number of subjects are claiming the appearance of various types of subjective symptoms, that they refer to the exposure to electric, magnetic or electromagnetic fields (EMF) from nearby electric appliances. Nervous and cardiovascular systems, and the skin, are most frequently (but not exclusively) involved. Terms like “electricity hypersensitivity” (EHS), “EMF hypersensitivity”, or other, are frequently adopted to describe such symptoms, nevertheless up now, they cannot be considered established medical terms. No accepted diagnostic criteria or procedures were proposed for the diagnosis of EHS; on the contrary, apart from the subject’s self-attribution of the symptoms to EMFs, there is no established cause-effect relationship between EHS symptoms and electromagnetic fields. Furthermore, any credible pathogenetic mechanism is lacking, even if some was proposed, but not proved. In this paper, the cases of two people who developed symptoms of EHS referred to overhead power lines in the proximity of the house are presented and discussed. Approaches for similar cases, involving the participation of different medical and non-medical technical scientific disciplines are also briefly discussed.