Health Issues From Using Fluorescent Bulbs Over Incandescent

Fluorescent bulbs have several qualities that make them superior to incandescent versions. They have much longer lifespans, are more energy efficient--which helps homeowners and businesses save money, and can produce a wider range of light types for more applications. However, fluorescent bulbs also have several different qualities that pose certain problems to health that incandescent bulbs, with their warm radiance, do not.

Fluorescent Bulbs

• Fluorescent bulbs do not use a filament to produce light. Instead, they use a mixtures of gases, usually an inert gas like argon and a vapor like mercury, to produce light. The mercury creates ultraviolet radiation when charged with a current. The radiation hits the phosphor coating on the bulb, and this coating reacts, producing the bluish, visible light humans see. The frequency of the electrical current is carefully controlled by a ballast in the base of the bulb.

Radiation

• The mercury vapor does produce ultraviolet radiation, and this radiation can be harmful to humans, especially to the eyes, where it can destroy fragile light sensing cells. However, almost all radiation in the bulb is absorbed by the phosphor coating before it escapes, bringing UV light levels down. The only time humans are exposed to the radiation is when the bulbs break, and fluorescents usually have fail-safes to prevent this.

Mercury

• Mercury is a toxic metal, and if absorbed, it can easily do damage to the human body. The most dangerous time for this absorption is when the bulb breaks and the mercury vapor floats in the air for a while before settling to the ground. In order to prevent mercury poisoning, fluorescent bulbs must be properly and safely recycled or disposed of.

Flicker

• Older fluorescent bulbs use ballasts that create cycles at 60 hertz per second. These cycles are often slow enough for humans to distinguish the arcs of electricity as the pass through the bulb. This flicker can cause headaches and eyestrain. They have also been rumored to cause seizures in epileptics, but there is little scientific evidence to prove this.

Sleep Cycles

• Fluorescent lights can resemble daylight more easily than incandescents, especially fluorescent lights made to mimic the light of the sun. This means they can more easily disrupt the body's natural sense of day and night, possibly creating sleep disturbances in some people.