Part 1 of 3 (Part 2, Part 3)

By John Ott

The trend in today's modern architecture is, to say the least, confusing.

Does it really make any difference what kind of artificial lighting is used?

More and more buildings are now either constructed with all outer walls made entirely of glass or no windows at all. Many school districts are walling up existing windows to conserve heat in the winter and cooling in the summer. This then means total dependence on artificial sources for light.

While glass itself stops most of the ultraviolet rays in sunlight, various types of coatings are available that are guaranteed to shut out virtually all the ultraviolet and also infrared parts of the full natural sunlight spectrum. This is because infrared produces excessive heat and because of all the talk about ultraviolet light causing skin cancer, cataracts, and being generally hazardous to one's health.

New eyeglasses are also now available to give absolute protection against the so-called harmful ultraviolet in natural outdoor sunlight or even any trace amount that may penetrate through ordinary glass windows or that may be emitted from artificial indoor electric light sources.

Different tints or deeper colors are being used in both windows and eyeglasses, including contact lenses. Unfortunately, economics and the energy crunch have been the primary concern in trying to find the answer to these questions.

Some progress is being made, but what may actually turn out to be the most important question about windows and artificial light sources is the human health factor resulting from the wavelength characteristics of the materials used in making these products. To date, unfortunately, this approach to the subject of "healthy" windows and lights has been virtually ignored.

One school of thought still held by many researchers is that light only affects the growth of plants and has no effect whatsoever on animals or humans. For example, the General Electric Company is certainly one of the major manufacturers in the world of light bulbs and synthetic glazing materials for windows.

Their lighting research headquarters, located in Nela Park, Ohio, is regarded by lighting designers, architects, and engineers as one of the most authoritative, reliable, and up-to-date sources of information that there is on this subject. In one of the recent GE publications (received January, 1985), entitled Lighting Application Bulletin, it is stated:

To the best of our knowledge, the color of light does not affect the health and well-being of people. Most such claims are based on anecdotal observations, improperly controlled studies or on nonscientific conclusions. The radiant power from an electric light source is no different from the power from the sun. It differs only in the relative amounts of power at each wavelength. People may be happier in a room lighted with a warm color than with a cool color, or vice versa...

On the other hand, another school of thought believes that while too much ultraviolet, or in fact too much of anything including even pure oxygen or water, is definitely harmful, normal amounts of these forms of energy found in nature may be essential to the healthy growth and development of both plants and animals.

In addition to all the new products designed to protect people from the so-called harmful effects of any trace amount of ultraviolet, come others that are designed to let through the natural ultraviolet in sunlight and add the normal amount of ultraviolet that is lacking in artificial light sources.

Who is the average lay person to believe, and how can anybody make a decision in the face of this very controversial dilemma? It may be helpful to analyze the reasons and logic given by both sides of the argument in support of their directly opposing positions. Glaring headlines may influence people to jump to conclusions without reading all the details and small print in long scientific papers.

For example, an article appeared in the March, 1982 issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology entitled "Action Spectrum for Retinal Injury from Near-Ultraviolet Radiation in the Aphakic Monkey" by William T. Ham, Jr., Ph.D.; Harold A. Mueller; John J. Ruffolo, Jr., Ph.D.; Dupont Guerry, III, M.D.; and R. Kennon Guerry, M.D.

The article explains that all animals were first tranquilized with an intramuscular injection. The pupils were dilated wide open and an intravenous injection of sodium pentobarbital was used for deep anesthesia. Hypothermia was prevented by enveloping the animal in a thermal blanket controlled electronically by a rectal thermometer.

A special device was used to keep the eyelids open and frequent applications of physiological saline prevented drying of the cornea. The entire radiation beam from a 2,500 watt xenon lamp, equipped with quartz optics, was used. Xenon lamps are extremely intense sources of light containing high levels of ultraviolet radiation. Exposure times ranged up to 1,000 seconds, which is a little more than 16 minutes. The results produced irreparable damage to rod and cone photoreceptors.

Using the full beam of such an intense light source directly into the eye of an anesthetized animal with the eyelid secured open and the pupil fully dilated presents a totally abnormal and unrealistic condition and might be compared to somebody thrusting his hand directly into the fire of a furnace for a little more than 16 minutes and then jumping to the conclusion that we must live at absolute zero temperature if this procedure produced any blisters or burns on his fingers.

When it was found that giving a little extra oxygen to premature babies in their incubators in order to give them a better start in life caused blindness, brain tissue damage, deafness and other abnormalities, the practice of giving extra oxygen was discontinued.

Fortunately, no one jumped to the conclusion that this proved oxygen is hazardous to one's health and that henceforth everyone must learn to live without any oxygen. This, of course, sounds utterly ridiculous, but nevertheless this is exactly what is being done with regard to ultraviolet light. There is no doubt that too much ultraviolet can be harmful, but in so completely protecting ourselves from any trace amounts of it we are creating a deficiency in a very important life-supporting energy.

Another example is that giving rats 300 times the normal amount of cyclamate may cause bladder cancer. However, similarly increasing the normal dosage of aspirin would amount to taking 600 tablets every 4 hours, and (to my knowledge) this has not as yet been officially tested, but quite obviously would prove to be hazardous to one's health.

Such obvious inconsistencies of present-day orthodox scientifically controlled medical research methods are hard to understand or explain, but the author of this book had a professional background in banking, based more on a common-sense or practical approach to such problems, and lacked the necessary training in understanding this kind of scientific theoretical irrationalness.

Now we will go to the other side of the story in support of healthy windows and artificial lights, and the importance of the full spectrum of natural sunlight and especially the normal amount of ultraviolet rays. It is a simple basic law of physics that all chemicals and minerals have what is known as a maximum wavelength absorption.

Some medications are known to react to ultraviolet light and may cause severe side effects if the person taking them goes out into the sunlight. This is because they have a wavelength absorption in the ultraviolet. Accordingly, when prescribing these drugs for people working indoors in offices all day, it is common practice for doctors to advise their patients to stay out of the direct sunlight.

It is then necessary to prescribe much higher doses of these drugs, especially for people working in offices up north during the winter time, in order to obtain normal responses when they are at best exposed to only a minimal amount of ultraviolet or even the possibility of absolutely no ultraviolet at all.

Recently, a friend of mine, who was quite elderly and hard of hearing, came down to Florida and did go out for a walk in the bright sunlight. He was taking several medications that apparently had a wavelength absorption in the ultraviolet, as he became dizzy, blacked out, and had to be taken to the hospital.

Instead of telling him to stay out of the sunlight, his new doctor cut the dose of his medication way down and told him to go out and get some sunlight, but be careful not to get sunburned. This new approach to the old problem of the photo-toxic effects of certain drugs to sunlight worked very well on my friend, and I believe it was at least partially responsible for starting an interesting experiment with chickens.

"Money in the Bank"

This is a new, quite practical method of measuring research results being used in the poultry industry and is also of special interest to anyone with a background in banking. It seems to speak louder than all the papers published in the scientific literature.

In days gone by, when chickens were kept outdoors, a laying hen was profitably productive for five years. Now, under the new "improved" indoor mechanized methods in poorly lighted windowless buildings, the hens only last for 13 months and then must be replaced at a cost of $125,000 per standard 50,000-bird house.

However, when the latest type of radiation-shielded, full spectrum fixtures (now known as the "Ott-Lite") was installed, the hens remained at peak production for 3 years. They were still going strong when there was an unusually severe outbreak of avian flu, and all the chickens in an area encompassing large parts of several eastern states were eradicated by the federal government.

Unfortunately, the chickens under the experimental lights were right in the heart of the avian flu area, and, even though they were showing unbelievable resistance to the flu, no exceptions to the general order of eradication were permitted, and this experiment had to be started over again.

However, in addition to the lighting extending the laying period of the hens from 13 months to 3 years and to their still going strong when the avian flu epidemic hit, data showed that, on an annual basis, the birds ate $19,700 less feed per 50,000 bird house; laid 8.5% more eggs, or $39,800 more in total sales; cracked 2% fewer eggs, saving $20,000; while laying larger eggs worth an additional $7,800.

Add to this that the birds did not have to be debeaked, because there was no cannibalism, saving another $4,000 in labor, thereby making a grand total of $91,300 more profit to the farmer (in addition to the $125,000 savings in replacement costs). Another advantage with potentially far reaching implications is that the eggs produced under the radiation shielded, full spectrum fluorescent fixtures contained 22% less cholesterol.

Blue light is currently being used quite commonly in hospitals across the country and around the world to treat the jaundice problem known as hyperbilirubinernia in premature babies. Westinghouse Electric Corp. is now manufacturing a special blue light for this purpose.

The bilirubin serum in the blood interacts with the particular wavelengths that we see as blue. This interaction breaks down the bilirubin serum so that it can be excreted. It is now known that the wavelength absorption of cholesterol is in the ultraviolet, and if chickens, or maybe even people, do not get any ultraviolet, then the cholesterol level builds up just like the bilirubin serum does.

Gocio School Study

The money in the bank speaks for itself, but the results or "anecdotal observations, improperly controlled studies or nonscientific conclusions", if you prefer to call them that, do tie in with a somewhat similar study done by the Environmental Health and Light Research Institute (EHLRI) with school children in Sarasota, Florida during the first five months of the 1973 school year and published in Academic Therapy. (Vol. 10(l), 1973).

Full-spectrum, radiation-shielded, fluorescent light fixtures were installed in two windowless classrooms, and in two other identical windowless classrooms standard cool white fluorescent fixtures were used as controls. The results showed that several extremely hyperactive children with confirmed learning disabilities calmed down completely and rapidly overcame their learning and reading problems while in the full-spectrum lighted environment.

The overall average academic achievement level showed significant improvement, and a simultaneous study by the Sarasota County Dental Society showed that the children in the two rooms with the radiation-shielded, full-spectrum lighting, simulating natural outdoor daylight, developed only one-third the number of cavities in their teeth compared to the children under the standard cool white fluorescent lighting.

In1976 three representatives of the General Electric Company visited the school and made a detailed study of the two different lighting conditions. Soon thereafter, the Environmental Health and Light Research Institute (EHLRI) received a letter from the editor of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, enclosing a copy of a paper entitled "Fluorescent Lighting: A Purported Source of Hyperactive Behavior," submitted by K. Daniel O'Leary and Alan Rosenbaum of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and Philip C. Hughes of General Electric.

The editor of the Journal was so amazed at the methods used by the O'Leary-GE group to claim duplication of the EHLRI that he offered to let EHLRI submit a rebuttal, which he would forward to Dr. O'Leary and GE for their further comments. He also offered to submit their rebuttal to EHLRI for any additional comments. This was done, and all three papers were then published in the Vol. 6, No. 3, 1978 issue of the Journal. This was certainly very thoughtful of the editor and a very courteous and fair way to handle an interesting and unusual situation.

The definition of the word "purported" used in the title of the Stony Brook-GE paper is "to express or claim, often falsely." The Stony Brook-GE article states that "the results of this study fail to support the contention that full-spectrum lighting with controls for purported x-rays and low frequency electro-magnetic radiation results in a less hyperactive behavior than standard cool white fluorescent lighting."

The O'Leary-GE article mentions their method of radiation shielding, which was not the same as that used in the Sarasota study; it mentions using seven children in one classroom with windows and with the shades pulled down to within 6" of the bottom of the window. This, of course, would let in considerable outdoor daylight right at the eye level of the children sitting at their desks. However, even though the outdoor light was filtered through glass, it would have a strong overriding effect on the interior artificial lighting.

A major concern about the different methods used in the two studies was that in the O'Leary-GE study the two types of lighting were changed back and forth every week in the one classroom with the same seven children, whereas the Sarasota study used a total of four windowless classrooms with the different types of lighting in two rooms each, continuously, with the same children (a total of 98 children) for five months.

Even though the GE study ran for two months, it is difficult to understand how the accumulated effect of either type of lighting could be ascertained when the lighting conditions on the same children were switched back and forth every school week, which meant that no child remained under the same light for more than five days at a time. This seems to be another example of the difficulty of understanding modern scientific theoretical irrationalness, as previously mentioned.

Part 2