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Bad Science!
Just in case anyone else is wondering where the "OMG if an LED shatters in your home you need a hazmat suit to clean it up!!1!" meme is coming from:
LED products billed as eco-friendly contain toxic metals, study finds
It's an important study; LEDs appear to have more than the legal amounts of lead, and other heavy metals such as arsenic can be a disposal and groundwater issue. Where it departs from reality is how it affects the average person.
Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine's Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention [...] said that breaking a single light and breathing fumes would not automatically cause cancer, but could be a tipping point on top of chronic exposure to another carcinogen. [...] When bulbs break at home, residents should sweep them up with a special broom while wearing gloves and a mask, he advised."
Since Mr. Ogunseitan seems smart enough in other parts of this article, I have to assume that the reporter screwed up and quoted his guidelines for disposing of CFLs, not LEDs. Meanwhile, the "hazmat" aspect seems to have panicked non-science reporters everywhere, and I'm now getting OMGWTFBBQ from my alt-health list and social media. Sigh.
I'm going to write to Mr. Ogunseitan and the UC Irvine communications director in the hope they can put out a correction, but corrections never travel as fast or as far as bad science. :/
LED products billed as eco-friendly contain toxic metals, study finds
It's an important study; LEDs appear to have more than the legal amounts of lead, and other heavy metals such as arsenic can be a disposal and groundwater issue. Where it departs from reality is how it affects the average person.
Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine's Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention [...] said that breaking a single light and breathing fumes would not automatically cause cancer, but could be a tipping point on top of chronic exposure to another carcinogen. [...] When bulbs break at home, residents should sweep them up with a special broom while wearing gloves and a mask, he advised."
Since Mr. Ogunseitan seems smart enough in other parts of this article, I have to assume that the reporter screwed up and quoted his guidelines for disposing of CFLs, not LEDs. Meanwhile, the "hazmat" aspect seems to have panicked non-science reporters everywhere, and I'm now getting OMGWTFBBQ from my alt-health list and social media. Sigh.
I'm going to write to Mr. Ogunseitan and the UC Irvine communications director in the hope they can put out a correction, but corrections never travel as fast or as far as bad science. :/
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I've heard the hazmat claim about CFLs, but it just comes from uninformed advice to a panicked person. This really is a sloppy piece.
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