  The theory relevant to the study of matter in equilibrium with the radiation
field is thermal quantum electrodynamics (TQED). We present a formulation of
the theory, suitable for non relativistic fluids, based on a joint functional
integral representation of matter and field variables. In this formalism
cluster expansion techniques of classical statistical mechanics become
operative. They provide an alternative to the usual Feynman diagrammatics in
many-body problems which is not perturbative with respect to the coupling
constant. As an application we show that the effective Coulomb interaction
between quantum charges is partially screened by thermalized photons at large
distances. More precisely one observes an exact cancellation of the dipolar
electric part of the interaction, so that the asymptotic particle density
correlation is now determined by relativistic effects. It has still the
$r^{-6}$ decay typical for quantum charges, but with an amplitude strongly
reduced by a relativistic factor.
