Safe lightbulbs and autistic friendly lighting?

Question

I have seen alot of reports on the new flourescent bulbs containing mercury.Also about flourescent lighting bothering autistic children.My question is,What is the best type of lighting,besides natural light for autistc children?Also where do you buy the light bulbs?

Answer 1

Just an autistic point of view here:

1) The new Flourescent light bulbs flicker and are easily dozens of times more irritating than the ones from many years ago. I know other autistics who can correlate this fact.

2) Mercury poisoning may cause symptoms which mimmic autism, but since autism has been proven by 137 scientists in 50 locations worldwide to be genetic in origin (see below), there is no need to worry about Mercury causing autism in the strictest sense of the word.

3) Incandescent light bulbs are still the best if you've got a household with an autistic in it.

http://communications.uwo.ca/making_headlines/coverage/070218-1.htm Canadian-led research identifies new genetic regions linked to autism

"The consortium of scientists - 137 from 50 centres worldwide that make up the Autism Genome Project - analyzed DNA from about 1,600 families with autistic children to try to zero in on a specific group of brain cells and the genes that affect their development and function."

Answer 2

Fluorescent lights do contain mercury but it's only a danger if you break the light (so don't do that then) and even then the amount in the light means that it probably wouldn't be anything to worry about if you do break it (and they aren't putting as much mercury in fluorescent lights as they used to).

The big fuss that is being made about the mercury in fluorescent lights is that it can get released when the lights are disposed of (recycling would fix that problem) although the amount of mercury released would actually be less than what a coal fired power plant would release to power an incandescent.

If there is a problem with fluorescent lights then it would probably be the flicker which a compact fluorescent shouldn't have (since CFL's have an integrated ballast running at a much higher frequency than ordinary fluorescents).

The flicker is more noticeable in 50 Hz countries than 60 Hz countries (ordinary fluorescent lights drop out at twice the rate of power supply so that'll be 100 times or 120 times per second the light will turn off (current reversal happens twice per cycle)) with incandescent flicker being unnoticeable due to the thermal inertia (the light glows by having a hot filament and the filament stays hot long enough for the light to barely dim while the current is reversing direction) and CFLs turn on and off too fast to be noticeable by anyone.

Colour temperature is also different though that'll just make things look different and shouldn't have any effect (and fluorescents aren't as bad as they used to be).