Shedding Light on a Cause of Breast Cancer

States Taking Action on Light Pollution

Over half the states have adopted laws or debated light pollution controls. Missouri (HB 1727) is looking at this issue this session.

Missouri Night Sky Protection Act:

http://missourinspa.googlepages.com/

Both are a non-issue

Artificial lighting and Global warming. I guess the apocalypses is upon us.

Get over it!

Harder breast cancer article

This is definitely thought-provoking, although good science should always be concerned about the validity of study results. Hopefully we can get more data on this, as breast cancer is certainly a major health concern for women.

Planning to follow up

Robert, thanks for alerting me to what's going on in Missouri. There's certainly a lot being done about light pollution in the arenas of regulation and conservation. Connecticut, I also hope we get more data. What we've got so far is pretty interesting, and I plan to write more about the topic soon. I welcome suggestions and questions.

More likely cause of breast cancer

Melatonin is important, and can also be supplemented. I would be curious to see if that would negate the alleged effects.

A few articles on a more likely cause of breast cancer can be found at:

http://www.controlyourimpact.com/

Light At Night A Threat To Your Health

Light at night as a threat to human health has been on the radar for some time. It's good to see that we're learning more about its dangerous effects (even as we light up every square inch of the planet).

Checkout (http://www.starrynightlights.com/lightpollution/light_pollution_and_human_health.html) for a collection of recent articles on the subject.

You can ignore the mounting evidence or keep your head in the sand...

Starrynightlights

Interesting collection of links there, Anthony. (Including one to a story I wrote!) I see you have a <a href=http://www.israelrsa.org.il/meeting/Cancer%20incidence.ppt>Powerpoint presentation</a> created by Stevens' Israeli colleagues -- it looks like an early version of the paper they just published.

Light and breast cancer

For an overview article see "Lighting for the human circadian clock: recent research indicates that lighting has become a public health issue"; J of Medical Hypotheses; vol 63, 588-596 (2004); SM Pauley

Why has OSHA ignored the shift work risks? The IARC (WHO equivalent of OSHA) now lists shift work as a "probable carcinogen".

Is the lighting industry lobby so powerful it can over-ride public health and safety and continue to block state-wide lighting ordinances designed to eliminate light pollution?

light pollution education

learn more at www.britelitesout.com there are so many reasons to act on this problem. And Anothony has some great solutions.

How important is light as a factor?

I quote the above article:-

"breast cancer incidence is about 73 percent higher in communities with the greatest amount of artificial light at night than in communities with the least"

When they mentioned that breast cancer appears 73% higher in places with more artificial light, it does not mean light itself is the sole causative factor leading to the great difference in breast cancer incidence.

As we know, places with less artificial light is also less developed and you can expect less pollution, less stress, etc. which are well recognized causes of cancer. Thus light is not the only factor in this case leading to a lower incidence of breast cancer.

Thus the question to ask is how important light pollution is as a cause of breast cancer. For all we know, out of the 73%, only 2% could be due to light pollution.

There's so much more...

And hold on to your hats. Cancer is, itself, only the tip of the iceberg. See photoperiodeffect.com

Weak statistics can fool you

This is similar to the story about an elevated stork population in a certain town in Europe being a cause for more baby human births that year. Statistics are a neat tool, but they can fool you sometimes into a false conclusion.

This would make a good critical thinking question on a GMAT exam.

Often Sleeping under light also can cause near-sightness.

LP and the 24 hour day?

Light pollution is just a symptom of the 24 hour day. This is killing off Life On Earth. Breast cancer in women, prostate cancer in men (?), nocturnal birds die out around the world. Why? Because there is no night. How blind do you have to be? Are you just blinded by the light? LP sucks insects out of habitat areas like a vacuum cleaner. No insects- insectivorous creatures are denied food - they die. Bats, sparrows and insectivorous birds in southern Ontario. The evidence is there but experts apparently want other explanations for these "mysterious" issues. I am partially sighted. My blind friends tell me that there are none so blind as THOSE WHO WILL NOTE SEE.

I despair that we will be JTL - Just To Late, in dealing with the obvious problems which are just ignored. http://www.lightpollution.org.uk

massive lighting problem

How ridiculous is it, that all our roadway lighting standards are written by the lighting industry? Roadway lighting should only be used for public safety purposes. Municipalities are not obligated to light all the roads.

Unfortunately, streetlights are usually owned by utilities. They have no interest in conserving electricity at night, in fact, they would like to "dump" as much electricity at night as possible.

Privately, I've been told that over 90% of our roadway lighting in the US is wasted. In California they don't light their limited access highways and are considering eliminating lighting on the ramps.

Drive through your own communities at night and consider: what function are streetlights really performing? If they are for pedestrians, then they should be lighting the areas where there are pedestrians, then shut off when there is no need. There are button sensors that shut off streetlights in the middle of the night.

Find out how much your town pays for streetlights: installation, maintenance, and the energy use. I'll bet your mayor/supervisor would appreciate some input on this issue. No one who financially benefits from streetlighting should be making decisions about when to install it.

Streetlights produce so much light and are mounted so high that they invariably intrude on private property, often lighting up the insides of homes.

northern people

I wonder how those human populations that have been evolving in the far North have been affected by the long summer days in terms of melanin production and its potential positive effects. Does living in the dark for half the year make up for the Arctic summer? If so, perhaps shift work should be rotated on a yearly basis.... Great.

LIGHT & BREAST CANCER

Breast cancer has reached epidemic proportion which seems to be largely ignored. Twenty five years ago you hardly ever heard of someone you knew having breast cancer. Now it's every 3rd or 4th person and yet no one pays attention to the reasons why. Instead we choose to focus on various "Runs" to raise money for research. If research was genuinely being done they'd have found a cure by now. Instead money is poured into all the business that raise money to run the business of so called research. I'm not sure about the light link but I am very sure about the fossil fuel pollution link to breast cancer. And yet there is absolutely nothing being done to reduce this pollution by huge oil companies. Profit over health always wins out it seems and particularly where women are concerned. If it was the men with the cancer, much more would already have been done and we wouldn't still be looking for a cure.