LEDs Potentially Cause Cancer, Ruin Environment

Compact fluorescents contain toxic mercury that will turn your house into a Superfund cleanup site if you break one. But fortunately we will have an alternative, even after our rulers ban safe and affordable incandescent bulbs as of next year on behalf of crony capitalist bankrollers like GE. Let’s not forget LEDs:

Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.

“LEDs are touted as the next generation of lighting. But as we try to find better products that do not deplete energy resources or contribute to global warming, we have to be vigilant about the toxicity hazards of those marketed as replacements,” said Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine’s Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention.

Unlike global warming, the toxic threat of LEDs is apparently real:

Lead, arsenic and many additional metals discovered in the bulbs or their related parts have been linked in hundreds of studies to different cancers, neurological damage, kidney disease, hypertension, skin rashes and other illnesses. The copper used in some LEDs also poses an ecological threat to fish, rivers and lakes. …

“I’m frustrated, but the work continues,” said Ogunseitan, a member of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control’s Green Ribbon Science Panel. … “Every day we don’t have a law that says you cannot replace an unsafe product with another unsafe product, we’re putting people’s lives at risk,” he said. “And it’s a preventable risk.”

Why again are incandescent bulbs an “unsafe product”? Oh yeah, they make it be too hot outside, endangering the sacred polar bears.

polar bear melting global warming
Better we should get cancer than polar bears be subjected to this fate.

On a tip from Eric. Hat tip: inhabitat. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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