Energy-efficient fluorescent lighting may cause eye disease

Eye disease could increase as a result of the global trend towards replacing incandescent globes with energy-efficient fluorescent lighting.
With climate change, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is important. One way to do this is to phase out incandescent lighting in favour of more energy-efficient lighting.
This shift has already taken place in Australia and countries of the European Union. In the United States, federal law stipulates that incandescent lights be phased out by 2014.
In Australia, this change in lighting type has been estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 28 million tons between 2008 and 2020. Thus a global move toward fluorescent lighting in the home will lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gases.
The types of energy-efficient lighting with which incandescent lights are being replaced are high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and fluorescent lighting, including the popular compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).
These light sources are all more efficient than the incandescent lamp. HID lamps produce intense light in a small area. They are less energy efficient than fluorescent lights, but are used widely for lighting large areas such as streets and sports facilities. LEDs are energy efficient but not as bright, stable, or cheap as fluorescent lights.
However of all these lighting types, fluorescent lighting is considered most energy-efficient and also produces light most appropriate for working under. CFLs use 75% less energy than do incandescent lamps.
As a result of the popularity of fluorescent lighting, many people are now exposed to artificial sources of UV radiation emitted from these lights.
There is a general public awareness that UV radiation from the sun can damage the eye. For example, most people are aware of the importance of not looking directly at the sun, and operators of arc welders know to wear protective goggles. Less attention has been paid to the potentially damaging effects of UV radiation people are exposed to indoors, in particular from fluorescent lighting, a significant source of UV light.
The safe range of light, to avoid exposing the eye to potentially damaging UV light, is approximately 2000 to 3500K and greater than 500 nanometers. UV wavelengths less than 500 nanometers (and certainly less than 380 nm) are capable of irreparable damage to the eye. Unfortunately, some fluorescent lights currently fall outside this safe range.
CFLs vary in terms of color temperature, and there are variations and inconsistencies among manufacturers. The fluorescent lighting used indoors, particularly in commercial settings, is often in the form of cool-white tubes with a color temperature of 4000K or greater. The warmer CFLs, which are usually less than 3500K, are less damaging to the eye but produce light that is often inadequate for concentration at work.
Fluorescent lighting may increase UV-related eye diseases by up to 12% and, according to our calculations, may cause an additional 3000 cases of cataracts and 7500 cases of pterygia annually in Australia. Thus for Australia alone, we estimate at least 10000 additional cases of eye disease each year.
Our estimates are conservative and crude in that they are limited by the poor information currently available with regard to the incidence and etiology of many eye diseases. We have not included in our estimates age-related macular degeneration (AMD) because there is not yet universal agreement in the literature that it causes UV radiation. But if UV radiation was shown to cause AMD, this would have significant public health implications.
The evidence suggests that the least hazardous approach to lighting is to use warm-white tubes or incandescent bulbs of lower color temperature and longer wavelength light rather than fluorescent lamps. Unfortunately anything other than fluorescent lighting is considered inadequate for many workplaces and in the home.
We recommend that UV filters become a required standard, and that lamp manufacturers should not allow current levels of emission of UV light from fluorescent lighting to increase (and should work toward reducing emissions). Further research is also needed to improve lighting from artificial sources.

The full paper was published by the American Journal of Public Health, 10.2105/AJPH.2011.300246

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2011.300246v1?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=walls&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT