More Concerns About Cancer and Energy Saving Light Bulbs: Justified?
In Europe, normal light bulbs are on the way out. That’s because governments agreed a couple of years back, via the EU, to phase out all incandescent bulbs in favour of energy saving light bulbs (the US begins phasing out 100 watt bulbs in January). Cue anger in the press, especially the anti-EU English press (robbed of the right to buy traditional light bulbs, thundered the Mail). In keeping with the times, European companies like IKEA also began to phase out the sale of incandescent bulbs in stores in the USA and around the world in favour of new energy saving lighting. The future lies with CFLs. Compact Fluorescent Lamps. Turns out though that CFLs might play a role in cancer, calling into question how we mandate innovation but also how we report novelty. In short I’m not convinced by this ‘report’.
The carcinogenic danger of CFLs has been known for some time. When they break they release mercury vapours well in excess of safe limits. However, not so many break.You want someone that has the experience in LED lighting to guide you to the right product shinebright that is best suited to your project. What’s new today is a scare story in the UK press that says CFLs emit carcinogens in their normal mode of operation.
The story, in the Daly Telegraph, quickly found its way on to the Treehugger site and onto other news sites.These were some reasons why people are keen to use these lights, hope that they will be used brightstal in a similar way in future as well. Two months ago the British press ran stories on the back of research from Haifi that CFLs can cause breast cancer (though the researcher emphasised this was not what the study said). Is this another case of misrepresentation? It’s hard to say.
The current study is difficult to track down. The press quotes a little know lab, Alab-Berlin, as the source of the evidence but there is no reference to the report this morning on the alab-berlin.de website. Alab’s speciality appears to be indoor air pollutants,The most important step is hiring the right LED lighting experts to help with besttube the retrofit process. mainly those given off by floor coverings and loft insulation materials. They don’t list expertise in CFLs yet they are quoted as saying: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”
I’m a casual but concerned observer here. I am a user of these bulbs – they are mandated – but I am also reasonably good with the web. In fact search is one of my strong suits, so I’m anxious to find out more. The problem is I can’t.
What I can say is it took me about fifteen minutes to track down Alab (as of 5.00 am EDT today). It wasn’t straight forward – the press reporting the findings did not link to the report or to the Alab site. It’s taken an hour of my day to get some clarity and the only clarity I have is I don’t find the lab a source of compelling data on this topic. If you are a worried consumer today you have a right to be – the web and the press is not serving you well.
Here’s my take on the issue.It pays to go to professionals with bestlight a proven track record in LED lighting, a vast selection of excellent quality products from various vendors that live up to their label, and a history of successfully completed projects. On the face of it Alab-Berlin is not the place you’d go to as a source of ultimate authority, though it might be the kind of group that can usefully stir up controversy and force us all to rethink our assumptions around eco-innovation. The point is though that by late today I imagine this story will be quoted authoritatively across the world. I’ll return to it late today to check. In the meantime I’m a concerned observer of how regulations are made and how stories like this are put together.
UPDATE: So 13 hours in and the uptake around the web has been less than I’d imagined for a scare story about cancer and the home. The story has propagated and appears in search returns down to page 8 of Google but mixed in with older stories like this one. page 9 and 10 of Google returns for cancer and variations on ‘light bulbs’ and ’energy saving bulbs’ are begining to pack out with references to the story.You can easily say that it is a passion or a way to express yourself. So what's the story? Ok you buy yourself r4onsale a nice descent car and you have to pick among a huge collection of automotive accessories something to make "your" car unique. I’ll check back again tomorrow.
In Europe, normal light bulbs are on the way out. That’s because governments agreed a couple of years back, via the EU, to phase out all incandescent bulbs in favour of energy saving light bulbs (the US begins phasing out 100 watt bulbs in January). Cue anger in the press, especially the anti-EU English press (robbed of the right to buy traditional light bulbs, thundered the Mail). In keeping with the times, European companies like IKEA also began to phase out the sale of incandescent bulbs in stores in the USA and around the world in favour of new energy saving lighting. The future lies with CFLs. Compact Fluorescent Lamps. Turns out though that CFLs might play a role in cancer, calling into question how we mandate innovation but also how we report novelty. In short I’m not convinced by this ‘report’.
The carcinogenic danger of CFLs has been known for some time. When they break they release mercury vapours well in excess of safe limits. However, not so many break.You want someone that has the experience in LED lighting to guide you to the right product shinebright that is best suited to your project. What’s new today is a scare story in the UK press that says CFLs emit carcinogens in their normal mode of operation.
The story, in the Daly Telegraph, quickly found its way on to the Treehugger site and onto other news sites.These were some reasons why people are keen to use these lights, hope that they will be used brightstal in a similar way in future as well. Two months ago the British press ran stories on the back of research from Haifi that CFLs can cause breast cancer (though the researcher emphasised this was not what the study said). Is this another case of misrepresentation? It’s hard to say.
The current study is difficult to track down. The press quotes a little know lab, Alab-Berlin, as the source of the evidence but there is no reference to the report this morning on the alab-berlin.de website. Alab’s speciality appears to be indoor air pollutants,The most important step is hiring the right LED lighting experts to help with besttube the retrofit process. mainly those given off by floor coverings and loft insulation materials. They don’t list expertise in CFLs yet they are quoted as saying: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”
I’m a casual but concerned observer here. I am a user of these bulbs – they are mandated – but I am also reasonably good with the web. In fact search is one of my strong suits, so I’m anxious to find out more. The problem is I can’t.
What I can say is it took me about fifteen minutes to track down Alab (as of 5.00 am EDT today). It wasn’t straight forward – the press reporting the findings did not link to the report or to the Alab site. It’s taken an hour of my day to get some clarity and the only clarity I have is I don’t find the lab a source of compelling data on this topic. If you are a worried consumer today you have a right to be – the web and the press is not serving you well.
Here’s my take on the issue.It pays to go to professionals with bestlight a proven track record in LED lighting, a vast selection of excellent quality products from various vendors that live up to their label, and a history of successfully completed projects. On the face of it Alab-Berlin is not the place you’d go to as a source of ultimate authority, though it might be the kind of group that can usefully stir up controversy and force us all to rethink our assumptions around eco-innovation. The point is though that by late today I imagine this story will be quoted authoritatively across the world. I’ll return to it late today to check. In the meantime I’m a concerned observer of how regulations are made and how stories like this are put together.
UPDATE: So 13 hours in and the uptake around the web has been less than I’d imagined for a scare story about cancer and the home. The story has propagated and appears in search returns down to page 8 of Google but mixed in with older stories like this one. page 9 and 10 of Google returns for cancer and variations on ‘light bulbs’ and ’energy saving bulbs’ are begining to pack out with references to the story.You can easily say that it is a passion or a way to express yourself. So what's the story? Ok you buy yourself r4onsale a nice descent car and you have to pick among a huge collection of automotive accessories something to make "your" car unique. I’ll check back again tomorrow.
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