When you read the first few paragraphs of these stories, you're told these are the facts "according to experts".contadina wrote:There really seems to be a low energy lighting backlash in the press at the moment a small sample of headline in the past week include:
Low-energy bulbs 'could cause skin cancer'
Eczema Nightmare As Brits Move To Low-Energy Bulbs
Low-energy bulbs 'cause migraine'
Low-energy bulb disposal warning
Only when you get right to the very end do you find they're not referring to people who have carried out properly reviewed studies, but to spokesman for various interest groups who are going on anecdotal evidence.
Someone's lupus flares up a week after they put in a compact fluorescent light and they attribute the flare up to the change of light.
Someone else has a migraine after spending 20 minutes sitting in a room with a CFL, and blames it on the CFL.
That's not a reliable indicator of cause and effect. What else did those people do and experience in the time leading up to their conditions flaring up or occurring?
We don't know.
Thoroughly investigated anecdotal evidence can help indicate where thorough, properly reviewed research is needed, but at the end of the day it's no more than a collection of folk stories.