SVT has previously revealed how the Swedish Work Environment Authority has adapted to pressure from municipalities 'employers' organization SKR, by backing from a strict requirement for both visor and oral protection in all patient-related work. Instead, SKR has, with the support of the Public Health Authority's recommendations, wanted the issue of oral protection to be decided before each individual task.

In various contexts, the authority's management has denied that they should have backed down. But in an internal email that SVT took note of, the chief lawyer Anna Varg describes how to release the harsh requirement to "align with the Public Health Authority if possible" and to "not get a situation where different authorities are opposed to one another, society's message is perceived as contradictory and we have a difficult debate to deal with. "

"Public Health Authority is not God"

The handling elicits strong reactions. Anna Rask-Andersen, senior professor at Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Uppsala and former safety representative, thinks that the Swedish Work Environment Authority's Director General Erna Zelmin-Ekenhem should be fired.

- The Public Health Authority is not God, they are not experts in the working environment. The safety representatives must be able to trust that the Swedish Work Environment Authority cannot be affected.

The e-mail was later deleted. The agency's press service writes to SVT that “We strive to continuously clear away anything that is overplayed and should not be kept diarrhea. The emails you have requested fall into that category and therefore we have not saved them. "

The Swedish Work Environment Authority's management has repeatedly declined a TV interview with SVT about the process around Serafen. Anna Varg now states in a written comment that the e-mail in question was sent in an internal dialogue on how to argue when the Serafen case would come up in administrative law. “Of course, it is important to us that our requirements do not conflict with the recommendations of the Public Health Authority. The aim was to be clear in a situation that is new and challenging for many in society, in order to avoid misunderstandings. "

See SVT's review of the battle over the mouthguards here.