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Comment by rrr_oh_man | Hacker News Reader

> It's amazing how we're replaying the asbestos playbook a century later

Can you elaborate?

Asbestos was pushed as a magical solution to problems of fire in homes without paying attention to the health effects. It took 80 years for the obvious to become law.

Leds are pushed as a solution to energy consumption by humans without paying any attention to the health effects. Hopefully it will be less than 80 years of cancers and metabolic disruption before the obvious is done.

But this time the regulation was captured pre-emptively, to the point that following best scientific advice for your health is illegal is most of the developed world.

> But this time the regulation was captured pre-emptively, to the point that following best scientific advice for your health is illegal is most of the developed world.

Please cite your sources then. And no the other article you linked is not proving your claim

LEDs being ugly or causing eyestrain is one thing. But cancer? There's very little chance that LED lighting causes cancer. We don't have a plausible mechanism for that.

There are no white LEDs. Just blue LEDs with coatings that convert a fraction of blue/violet light into lower energy colours. They work the same way that fluorescent light do.

This means that LEDs produce a much higher amount of blue light that incandescents: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Spectrum-of-a-white-LED-...

Blue/violet light is known to cause cancer for a century now: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-020-01231-7

The linked Nature article basically says: there’s no clear evidence either way.

There's a mostly-unsubstantiated-by-data belief that LED lighting can cause health problems by some combination of flickering and narrow color spectrum.

There's a mostly-unsubstantiated-by-data belief that LED lighting can NOT cause health problems by some combination of flickering and narrow color spectrum.

Do you have evidence that this rock doesn't keep tigers away?

I guess you know better than the scientist studying it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

Looks to me that _you_ conclude it's related to LED, I couldn't find that stated in the abstract, it might just be related to a general increase of artificial lightening, regardless of the source.

Where does this article mention LED lights vs other types of artificial light-at-night? What I could find regarding light color:

> However, most studies relied on satellite-images with a very low resolution (1 to 5 km, from the Defense Meteorological Program [DMSP]) and without information on color of light

> noted that data quality suffered from many limitations due to the types of satellite images used and the focus in the vast majority on visual light levels only rather than considering the circadian-relevant blue light component, among others. Future studies should consider improved satellite-based ALAN technologies with improved resolution and information on spectral bands and apply these technologies to a variety of cancer sites to yield better estimates for the potential risks between ALAN and cancer.

So nothing conclusive about LED being bad for your health (vs other types of light).

You're playing so defensive (for LEDs) wonder why - just to argue? If one uses the same logic - does anybody states that LED are GOOD for the health? What the lack of such statements means - they're bad, or have no effect? At the end - is it your business at all if I want to use incandescent lights, or CFLs, because I find them more suitable for my personal needs in MY home?

Maybe it causes eyestrain. It's unlikely to cause cancer. It reduces energy use, which reduces smog, which reduces cancer.

No I just refute a claim on which the provided source does not prove or indicate in any way. I'm not arguing LED to be better or worse, I'm just looking at a proof of some kind to what is argued.

But it seems like it's too much to ask? I should just accept whatever comments I read without any critical thinking?

It assumes basic knowledge of the spectrum of various light sources. All white LEDs have a spike in the blue spectrum that incandescents don't: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Spectrum-of-a-white-LED-...

Per your link:

>The primary meta-analysis of indoor ALAN and breast cancer risk suggested an association, but it was not statistically significant.

That said, I'm actually sympathetic to the idea, and personally use incandescent lights. I just don't have any hard evidence to back it up (yet).

I’m guessing the Russian theory that asbestos is totally fine and isn’t harmful? The Russians still use asbestos and say it’s a plot by the west that we got rid of asbestos in our buildings. (Don’t shoot the messenger here, I have no dog in this fight and am not expressing an opinion)

You are expressing disinformation. The actual regulations are very different from what you make it seem.

Asbestos is totally safe as long as it’s not friable and you don’t sand it or disturb the fibers. Mesothelioma was a major problem if you were repeatedly exposed to asbestos. It’s present in nature and especially in soil in small concentrations. What makes it dangerous is if you’re constantly breathing it in. You would be doing that if you ran a buffer over asbestos tile for years, or if you worked in a space with asbestos pipe insulation, or if your job was to install asbestos siding or sheet flooring or formica(many adhesives contained it). Even gypsum wallboard contained asbestos up through the 80’s. It’s precisely its ubiquity as a building material that makes it dangerous because people are constantly disturbing it occupationally.

The problem is that not disturbing the fibers is impossible if you work with it at all, and workers in Russia still suffer from life-changing injuries. Disposing of it safely is also not realistically possible. The regulator just doesn't care, it's as simple as that. Of course they don't "think it's safe" as GP said, there's a ton of research and practice on the opposite and they set a specific (pretty low) limit on the exposure. But they turn a blind eye to the fact it's impossible to enforce and will never be followed in practice as long as asbestos is still being used anywhere. This is why asbestos use is banned everywhere, and this is the issue with Russian regulations, they give a tiny bit of economy a priority over public health, using the convenient research that pretty much "натягивает сову на глобус" in trying to downplay the hazard, if you actually read the relevant studies in Russian.

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