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At 02:54 PM 4/29/2000 vicki wrote:

>Here's what I'm going through:
>I am very light sensitive and glare sensitive, which is common
>with Fibromyalgia.  I lost my job 9 months ago when the office
>closed down.  It had fluorescent lights, but they had a cover.
>
>After sitting there all day I noticed I would get a little blotchiness
>(reddish & blotchy) of the palms (which were down, facing the
>computer keyboard), redness of the eyes, and blotchy neck &
>a little on the nose (Poikloderma of the neck and Rosacea of the
>nose - more prone on the neck) - dilated blood vessels.

I have researched flourescents for the color class I've taught for twenty
years. The cool white flourescents they use commercially are hard on people
in general. Those who work all day under UNSHIELDED flourescents have more
malignant melanoma skin cancer even than those who work outdoors.

Also, blue light at high lumens (very bright, like most flourescent lit
places) is hard on our endocrine system and causes us to secrete too much
ACTH. Red light at low lumens (like most of us have at home) is also hard
on us, but not as much so. I use 300 and 500 watt halogens at home and in
the studio. They have improved my mood, and my SADS, immensely. (How many
light bulbs does it take to change an art prof? :)

Flourescents are very hard on those who suffer migraine and those with
epilepsy. So it would make sense that they might also be hard on
fibromyalgia, or anything else. I have a student with ADHD who cannot take
a test under flourescent.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, I made the university change the
flourescents in my office and the main studio I teach in to halogens.
Students sure liked it. Imroved their color immensely. That's why the
primary lighting in museums and galleries is mostly halogen.

When you chart the visible spectrum emmited by incandescant light, it makes
a full curve, though not a curve that is congruent to the daylight curve.
But when you chart the visible spectrum emmited by flourescent, it does not
make a curve. You will see only a few spikes here and there, mostly in the
blue short wave range. There are great gaps of wave lengths that are simply
not there with flourescent. Hence the poor color recognition, especially in
the long wave (red and yellow) lengths. This depriving us of most of the
visible spectrum for great periods of our lives is not a good thing. This
is well known, but the flourescents are so cheap that industry and govt are
not interested in using something better.

If you want to see a great improvement in the behavior of grade school
children especially, get rid of the flourescent lights. This also cuts down
dramatically on the number of childen who need Ritalin. This, and the
proper colors for the purpose, is well spelled out in Mehnke's respected
book on how to light schools and public buildings.

Sorry this was so long,  but i felt I pared it to the simplistic bone as it
is.

-vance