Comment by d3bunker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by d3bunker | Hacker News Reader

Because sterilizing lamp use UVC ( more than 250 nm ) that hare ionising radiation, they cause cancer in long / medium term and burn your eyes immediately. Recently I read about a party where "diversely intelligent people" used UVC sterilising lamps as light effect, with this result:

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/msnbc/bored-ape-yacht-club-eye-b...

This is not a scientific journal, anyway I read the article and it is mix of unrelated sources:

- a test on certain UVC wavelength radiation on MOUSES*

- a study of UVC filters for eye safety

That to conclude that we should use UVC as anti-virus measure. GREAT !!!

A critic to HN in general, not related to this specific post: lately I see a proliferation of posts related to pseudo scientific article, should be more simple to flag them, especially when, as in this case, could give really bad ideas to people easily convertible in series injuries.

What happen if some parent put UVC lamps in children rooms to save them from infection ?

Maybe matter of medicine and public health should be taken from reliable sources, not from VOX. Just my opinion.I'm waiting for someone suggest game rays next times, sure they are more effective for sterilisation.

P.S. The more laughable part is when he use as reference an article from the '30s, when people could purchase objects made from really dangerous isotopes because there wasn't little or no clue about the effects of radiations in general. In the '50s, some shop in USA had a x-ray machine to check if shoes was of the right dimensions.

254nm UV is harmful to human eyes and skin, and shouldn't be directly exposed to people. 222nm UV is safe for humans, since the wavelength can't penetrate the outermost layer of skin/cornea.

This is discussed at length in the article, so I'm surprised to see this top of the comment page. I suppose it flatters HN readers' view of themselves as smarter than journalists.

> “Upper room” UV, the primary form of UV disease control tested to date, is a kind of compromise. The primary wavelength it uses, 254 nanometers, is dangerous to human skin and eyes if directly blasted at them. So, well, you don’t blast it directly at them. The next best thing is to put the lamps high up in a room, where they can kill pathogens at that height and spare the humans.

> The problem is that you can’t safely shine conventional 254 nm light at humans, much less at the wounds of humans who are recuperating from surgery. So Brenner and his colleagues, thinking about the donor’s challenge, arrived at the idea of trying out shorter wavelengths, 207 nm or 222 nm far-UV. Those wavelengths penetrate far less than conventional UV, and because of that, far-UV seemed much less likely to damage human skin or eye cells, while still being strong enough to kill viruses and bacteria.

This is precisely what's addressed by the article though. It's talking about far UV, which based on evidence to date does not cause any damage to skin or eyes. The ozone issue certainly needs more study, but I don't see the justification for labelling this an unreliable source. It seems like an accurate overview to me.

This is not a scientific journal, anyway I read the article and it is mix of unrelated sources:

- a test on certain UVC wavelength radiation on *MOUSES*

- a study of UVC filters for eye safety

That to conclude that we should use UVC as anti-virus measure.

Has the journalist a degree in biology or medicine ? Are his conclusion supported by a serious medical study , with peer review ? * I don't think so, IMHO , is one that write stuff on Internet, so for someone he is a reliable source. OH PLEASE !!!

The article discusses the problems with UVC. No one who read this article would think UVC was safe to put in anyone’s bedroom.

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