Electromagnetic sensitivity

I am submitting this comment as an individual, based on my own recent experience. In the last two years I have developed what feels like a new sensitivity to certain wireless equipment. I had not had this problem with similar devices before. After I upgraded my home network to Wi-Fi 6 and plugged in the new router, I immediately developed a severe headache and nausea. Both stopped when I unplugged the router. I now keep it in a separate room. If I spend more than a few minutes in that room, the headache and nausea return. I have also had similar headaches, with a burning sensation, on recent flights. I believe this may be related to in-flight Wi-Fi. I now avoid Bluetooth headphones and generally keep my distance from this kind of equipment. I am not claiming this proves a specific medical mechanism. I am reporting a consistent pattern in my own life and urging HHS to support research into whether some people have become more sensitive to RF/EMF, including newer Wi-Fi generations and dense wireless environments (homes, aircraft). Distinguishing established evidence from emerging findings and uncertainty would help families and policymakers. Thank you for considering public input.

I am submitting this comment in response to HHS’s Request for Information on Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs), Radiofrequency (RF) Radiation, and Wireless Radiation Exposure. I am a licensed Naturopathic Medical Doctor, Medical Director and Owner of Regenerate Health Medical Center in Santa Barbara, California. Environmental medicine is an important part of my clinical work, and I have worked with patients who report symptoms affected or exacerbated by EMF and wireless radiation exposure. This issue is also deeply personal to me. I am very sensitive to EMF and RF exposure. My concern developed through my own experience, my clinical work with patients, and years of continuing education and investigation into environmental exposures and their effects on human health. My reactions can be immediate. When I am around high levels of RF exposure (measured in microwatts per square meter), including from cell towers, Wi-Fi, or prolonged cell phone use, I develop headaches. With longer exposure, I can experience dizziness and nausea. These experiences have substantially changed how I live. I rarely leave my cell phone connected during the day. I turn it on when I need to check messages or use it for a specific purpose, then return it to airplane mode. My family and I have also gone to considerable lengths to reduce exposure in our home. We use hardwired Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi and avoid Bluetooth and wireless devices. We use dirty electricity filters and an EMF kill switch so we do not sleep in an electrical field. Our solar panels were intentionally placed only over non-sleeping areas. We also use graphite-based shielding paint and EMF-blocking window film. These choices require time, expense and planning. We make them because I can personally tell the difference. That experience also affects how I practice medicine. At Regenerate Health Medical Center, we take environmental exposures seriously when evaluating persistent or unexplained symptoms. We consider the environment in which a patient lives, sleeps, works and attempts to heal. I have encountered patients who report symptoms associated with EMF exposure or worsening of existing symptoms in higher-exposure environments. Their experiences deserve serious investigation rather than automatic dismissal. My perspective is therefore both personal and clinical. I know what it is like to experience these symptoms myself, and I also know what it is like to sit across from patients describing similar concerns. When patients repeatedly report changes in symptoms associated with their environment, physicians should be encouraged to investigate those patterns, not taught to disregard them simply because our understanding of the exposure is incomplete. I am particularly concerned by how difficult these exposures are to control. People can filter their water, remediate mold or stop using a particular chemical. Wireless radiation can come from neighboring Wi-Fi, cellular infrastructure, smart meters, schools, workplaces and public spaces. Even inside your own home, substantially reducing exposure requires actively working against how modern technology is designed. HHS should take a serious and independent look at this issue. People reporting sensitivity to wireless radiation should be documented and studied. Clinicians observing patterns among environmentally sensitive patients should be heard. Research should examine potential biological effects beyond tissue heating and investigate chronic, cumulative, real-world exposure from multiple sources. I also urge HHS to investigate potentially susceptible populations, including children and people reporting electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and study whether reducing exposure is associated with measurable changes in symptoms, sleep, autonomic function and relevant biological markers. As a physician, I want better answers for my patients. As someone who personally experiences symptoms with higher EMF exposure, I want those experiences taken seriously and investigated. And as someone whose family has gone to considerable lengths to create a lower-EMF home, I want Americans to retain the ability to make meaningful choices about their exposure. HHS has an opportunity to examine this question through the lens where it belongs: human health. Please listen to patients, families, clinicians and researchers raising these concerns. Fund rigorous research reflecting modern exposure conditions, investigate those who report particular sensitivity, and give Americans better information and greater ability to make informed decisions about their exposure. Thank you for giving those of us who have experienced this issue personally and clinically an opportunity to be heard.

I am submitting this comment in response to ET Docket No. 13‑84. I am writing to share my personal history with electromagnetic sensitivity and the profound impact radiofrequency (RF) exposure has had on my health, daily functioning, and ability to participate in normal life. I have always loved technology. For many years, my office was equipped with multiple wireless devices: DECT cordless phones, a wireless headset, a Wi‑Fi router on my desk, a cell phone with an ear device, and other equipment that produced continuous radiofrequency emissions. Prior to that, I worked for several years on the 18th floor of a building while employed by the District Attorney’s Office, where microwave dishes were mounted directly above my workspace. I cannot say whether that contributed to the onset of my condition, but it was part of my long-term exposure history. Over time, I became increasingly ill and did not understand why. I developed severe fatigue, pain, and debilitating symptoms that left me bedridden for nearly two years. Physicians told me it was fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, but none of the treatments helped, and no one could explain the cause. I also developed persistent tinnitus, which I still live with today. Eventually, after extensive searching and consultation, I learned about electromagnetic sensitivity. A building biologist evaluated my home and found significant wireless radiation from my router, DECT phones, and high levels of dirty electricity surrounding my workspace and bedroom. Once these sources were removed or mitigated, my symptoms improved enough for me to function again. Today, my home is fully hardwired. I use Ethernet instead of Wi‑Fi, I have installed a kill switch to turn off electricity around my bedroom at night, and I am extremely careful with my cell phone use. Even with these precautions, I remain highly sensitive to radiofrequency exposure in public places. The ubiquity of wireless devices, cell towers, and Wi‑Fi networks makes it difficult for me to leave my home. I am effectively homebound because of the widespread RF emissions in the community around me. This is not just a personal challenge — it is a public health issue. Wireless infrastructure is proliferating at a pace that far exceeds any precautionary approach. Small cells, 5G and 6G systems, dense Wi‑Fi networks, and satellite‑based RF sources are being deployed without meaningful consideration of long-term, cumulative exposure or the needs of people who are already electrically sensitive. For individuals like me, there is increasingly no place left to go. Public spaces, medical facilities, transportation systems, workplaces, and even residential neighborhoods are saturated with continuous RF emissions. The lack of low‑EMF environments or accommodations effectively excludes people with electromagnetic sensitivity from participating in society. HHS asked specifically for input from individuals experiencing health effects related to RF exposure. My experience demonstrates that electromagnetic sensitivity can be disabling, life‑altering, and functionally limiting. It affects access to healthcare, mobility, employment, and basic daily activities. It also raises serious questions about health equity: people with this condition have no safe public spaces, no recognized accommodations, and no meaningful protection from environmental exposures that are now unavoidable. I respectfully urge HHS to recognize electromagnetic sensitivity as a legitimate health concern, to evaluate the public health implications of chronic RF exposure, and to consider precautionary measures that protect vulnerable populations. People like me deserve acknowledgment, protection, and the ability to participate in society without being harmed by unavoidable RF exposure. Thank you for considering my experience. Respectfully,

I am very sensitive to EMF and very concerned about RF and wireless radiation. When working from home, I experience high anxiety and heart palpitations because my router was located in the same room that I was working in. Lost a day of work to move it to the garage. Now I have to limit my time in the garage. I have gone to great lengths to protect myself from radiation. Wired headphones, faraday enclosures on electronics, just to name a couple items. I live in a suburb with cell towers in close proximity to my residence and then of course there is the smart meter mounted to my home. Enough is Enough. PLEASE protect us from EMFs, RF and Wireless Radiation.

I knew I was sensitive to EMFs because walking into an Apple store would make me cranky within a few minutes, but the worst was when I started driving cars with computers in them. When I drove 60 MPH I would temporarily black out on the freeway. Luckily I only hit a guard rail once. Scary as hell. This never happened to me driving cars without sophisticated equipment in them.

Dear Mr. Kennedy, Thank you so much for the work that you are doing!!! I am part of 3% of the population that is electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Over the last 15 years I have been so sick from EMFs that it has impacted my ability to live and work in small towns to large cities. When I am triggered by EMFs I suffer daily migraines, emotional instability for no reason, extreme insomnia, buzzing sensations in my body, inability to focus, extreme burning pain in the right upper quadrant of my skull. The first time that I suffered from EMF hypersensitivity was 15 years ago from city to city electricity carrier lines. I was 3 or 4 blocks away and directly in the arc. I was in medical school, at the time, and nearly had to drop out. If it was not for the help of a Traditional Chinese Medicine herbalist and acupuncturist, I would have been another casualty. I moved out and was not able to return to my apartment for my things for a month. When I tried, all my symptoms would return. To this day, I cannot speak on my cel phone at all. If I speak on my cel phone even for less than a minute, I develop a burning, painful hotspot on the right side of my head. If I answer a text sometimes I can experience heat and pain in my head. I talk either on Google Voice or on my landline. When I moved to a town of 300 people in Eastern Oregon in 2018 I was fine until a year later when an enormous cel tower was placed in the middle of town. It was so powerful that I often had insomnia and hot spots on the right side of my skull. My best friend lived within a block and developed "rheumatoid arthritis" shortly after the tower went up. I saw her health deteriorate to the point where some days she can't get out of bed because she is in so much pain. When I moved to a city of 500,000 three years ago I was very afraid that I would not be able to find anywhere to live or work. I ended up buying a house a half hour outside the city, near a military base which does not allow a lot of cell towers nearby. I was able to tolerate living in the house until we put solar panels on the house. Immediately, I could not sleep and my symptoms started creeping back. I wish I had known that the inverters on the solar panels create a lot of dirty electricity which radiates out from the walls. I've done a lot of research on this and there is a lot of documentation on the cancer clusters created by electrical transformers especially near schools in Southern California. (See the book called Dirty Electricity.) Anyway, I had to sleep in our camper in the backyard all winter until we were able to put four dirty electricity filters from Satic Shield (each are $1500) on the electrical panel and I could move back into the house. I still cannot sleep in the master bedroom because the electrical panel is on that wall and all the electricity for the whole house runs through the room. Also, when I first moved to this city I got a job before I arrived. I had looked online extensively on antennasearch.com and thought that I was safe from the towers, but sadly I felt the tower after only a couple days working there. I found the tower hiding only about 50 feet from my office. I tried to hang in there because I loved the job for another three weeks. I had to quit, however, because I was experiencing daily migraines and extreme fatigue. Then began a six month search for an office that I could tolerate. I finally found one and moved in. I had not been there a year however, when a nail salon moved in on the same HVAC system. Chemical sensitivity is common with EMF hypersensitives. Again, migraines, fatigue, and my usual symptoms. I fought with the owners/managers for six months until they finally let me out of the lease. I was very ill at that point. Then I moved into another suite that unbeknownst to me, had government servers that emit extremely high levels of EMFs on both sides of me. Again, I tried to tolerate it for three weeks and was so sick afterwards I had to take a month off of working. I was able to use a friend's office in the meantime, but it took me six months total to find another office that was suitable for me to set up my wholistic medical practice. I am so grateful! My life is very complicated because of this health issue. Travel is very anxiety provoking because of all the EMFs in airports from people's cel phones. I never go to sporting events! I am careful to ground every day on a patch of grass I planted here in the desert. That is very helpful to me as well as eating the ancestral diet promoted by the Weston A. Price Foundation. Some books that have helped me not feel so alone are The Non-Tinfoil Guild to EMFs by Nicolas Pineault and Wifi Refugee by Shannon Rowan. I am currently writing a booklet in hopes of promoting awareness. Europe has EMF safe zone neighborhoods and much more consciousness around this. I hope that you are able to help curb the greed of the Telecommunications Industry that is sacrificing our health.

Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of Reassessment of Federal Communications ) ET Docket No. 13-84 Commission Radiofrequency Exposure ) Limits and Policies ) COMMENTS OF AUTHOR, This filing provides comments from Sue Howard in the above-referenced proceeding. I am a member of the public concerned with the unaddressed potential health and environmental risks of radiofrequency (RF) radiation from wireless infrastructure and devices. SUMMARY I am an ordinary citizen, wife, and mother, who was seriously injured by wireless radiation and who now suffers from a debilitating chronic medical condition called EMR Syndrome. ARGUMENT It was an innate survival instinct which helped me to pack up and leave everyone and everything I had ever known and relocate from the harmful suburbs north of New York City to the welcoming safety of the ‘Radio Quiet Zone’ in Green Bank, West Virginia. Due to the ceaseless, undisciplined proliferation of wireless technology, I had by 2009 developed a dizzying array of debilitating medical symptoms; which included burning skin sensations, headaches, enervation, tinnitus, numbness in my extremities, impaired focal concentration, as well as cardiac arrhythmia. After numerous consultations with leading medical specialists, I was finally diagnosed with EMR Syndrome. https://www.emrsyndrome.org/ Today, though Wi-Fi and shedding electricity from poorly insulated power-lines remain a challenge, I am much better able to manage my symptoms and enjoy an enhanced quality of life in my new home of Green Bank. However, obtaining accessible medical care both now, and in the future, remains an exceptionally difficult concern and challenge. I am unable to use tele-health services and don’t know how I could survive a hospital stay, if one were necessary. EMR Syndrome is a lifelong functional impairment, and those of us who suffer with this condition still lack access to this basic human need. I am part of a team of concerned citizens who are working hard to protect the Quiet Zone. Due to the low- EMF environment in a 10 mile radius surrounding the Green Bank Telescope, we are currently the only remaining control group left for independent scientific studies. It is imperative that we protect this sacred space, which is constantly under threat, for future generations. For as we know, once it is gone, there will be no getting it back. https://protectnationalquietzone.org/ CONCLUSION Accordingly, I strongly urge the Commission to, under the weight of the scientific evidence, find that the current RF exposure limits are insufficient to protect public health and the environment. They should be lowered to reflect the science previously disregarded by the Commission. Dated: September 30, 2026 Sincerely, Sue Howard 1

It is not only injurious to us to be always surrounded by Wi-Fi and radiation, but please think about your children and grandchildren. It is not practical for us to be living in our own personal faraday cage because we have become so sensitive that we cannot function in our wired society.

I am a registered nurse with more than a decade of experience in healthcare, and my experience with electromagnetic sensitivity developed in the context of a significant environmental illness. My health initially declined after living in a water-damaged, mold-contaminated home. I developed severe neurological and systemic symptoms, including vertigo, tinnitus, cognitive changes, headaches, sleep disruption, and other symptoms that dramatically affected my ability to function. After leaving that environment, my health improved significantly. I eventually moved into a different home and initially felt well there. That is when I began recognizing something I had not previously understood: electromagnetic exposures appeared to trigger some of my neurological symptoms even when I was no longer living in the mold-contaminated environment. I began noticing repeatable patterns with certain exposures. Turning on Wi-Fi could bring on unusual neurological sensations in my head. Certain electronics could trigger sharp headaches and uncomfortable sensations in my chest or heartbeat. Increasing my distance from these sources, turning wireless devices off, and hard-wiring equipment often reduced the symptoms. What made this particularly interesting to me as a nurse was that I did not react equally to every electronic environment. For example, I could work around hard-wired hospital computers without experiencing the same degree of symptoms. That made me begin paying closer attention to the type and characteristics of the exposure rather than assuming that all electronics affected me equally. I am not claiming that my experience proves that electromagnetic exposure caused these symptoms. I am reporting a pattern that became sufficiently reproducible that I could no longer dismiss it. My experience also raises a question that I believe deserves serious research: Could environmental illness or other biological stressors make some individuals more susceptible to electromagnetic exposures? In my case, the sensitivity became apparent following a period of significant illness associated with a water-damaged building. I encourage HHS to investigate people who report electromagnetic sensitivity rather than studying only healthy populations. Research should examine whether previous environmental exposures, chronic inflammation, neurological injury, or other biological factors may identify susceptible subgroups. Controlled and blinded exposure studies could help determine whether reported symptoms correspond with measurable physiological or neurological changes. There is still much we do not understand. As both a nurse and someone who has personally experienced this phenomenon, I believe patient experiences like mine should be treated as observations worthy of investigation—not as proof of causation, but as signals that can help us ask better scientific questions. I hope HHS will pursue rigorous, independent research into electromagnetic exposure, individual susceptibility, cumulative exposure, and the experiences of people reporting electromagnetic sensitivity.

Yes I'm highly sensitive to emf. When I'm in close range to any wireless, Bluetooth or 5G My skin feels like it's burning, I start sweating, hard to think straight, my eyes will flutter, I get anxious, hard to sleep, get headaches, ears hurt, etc.