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LightAware Winter Newsletter 2018

Dear LightAware Advisors, Ambassadors and Supporters,
Thank you for your help and support.
This newsletter is to let everyone know what has been happening with LightAware since the summer. We’ve been quite busy!
Wishing you a wonderful festive season!

Support LightAware while you shop online

Calling Christmas shoppers! We have signed up to two online schemes which donate a percentage of takings to charity, with no extra cost to yourself. If our supporters shop regularly in this way, it would make a big difference to what we are able to achieve. All donations will strengthen LightAware’s capacity to raise awareness about the effect of artificial light on human health and wellbeing. Here’s how to do it:

Give as you Live www.giveasyoulive.com
Give as you Live is an online fundraising platform allowing users to shop at over 4,100 top stores and raise free funds for charity. The store pays Give as you Live a percentage of your total purchase price in commission and of this, 50% is passed on to charity.

Bullet point action list:

Go to: www.giveasyoulive.com Log in (or sign up free) on your device
Choose a charity to support (type in LightAware in the search box)
Select LightAware
Search for the store you want to shop at using the search facility
Once you’ve found the store, click on the ‘Shop & Raise’ button
You will be then directed to the stores website where you can shop as normal
Once you’ve made your purchase, the store will confirm the transaction with Give as you Live
You’ll then receive an email confirming how much you’ve raised for LightAware!

Amazon Smile smile.amazon.co.uk
When the customer shops with Amazon using Amazon Smile, Amazon donates 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) of eligible purchases to the charitable organisation of your choice - LightAware! So basically, 50 pence for every £100 can go directly to LightAware at no cost to the customer. It doesn’t seem a great deal of money, but it will soon add up, especially once the Christmas shopping frenzy begins.

Bullet point action list:

Go to: /smile.amazon.co.uk
On the right hand side of the welcome page, type in LightAware in the entry field
Press Search
Select LightAware on the results page
Tick the box to say you understand to make use of the charitable donation, you must shop at Amazon via the SmileAmazon route
Then shop! It’s as simple as that!

EU Single Lighting Regulation

The EU Single Lighting Regulation, which aims to phase out all but one form of halogen and much fluorescent lighting by September 2021, is now being discussed by the EU ENVI Committee and DG Energy.

The draft regulation contains a slightly modified version of an exemption supported by LightAware and the Europe wide lighting industry body, Lighting Europe. This would allow incandescent light bulbs to be prescribed to patients with photosensitivity. LightAware welcomes the inclusion of this exemption, and the acknowledgement that there are health issues with new forms of lighting. We are, however, concerned that the exemption would do nothing to resolve the social exclusion currently being suffered by people who are unable to tolerate fluorescent and/or LED lighting. We need a choice of lighting to be available in the public realm as well as provision made specifically for light-sensitive people.

Please sign petition calling for the freedom to choose healthy light

We are delighted to welcome a new LightAware Ambassador for Germany, Maximilian Blaschke, who campaigns in Germany and across the European Union for the ‘freedom to choose healthy light’. He has founded a self-help group named “Selbsthilfegruppe LIGHTGESUNDHEIT” (light health self help group) to help light-sensitive people.

Maximilian has brought our attention to a petition which challenges the European Union Commission’s Single Lighting Regulation and its phase out of halogen lighting:

“We call on the EU to allow us the freedom to choose healthy light. The trade in halogen bulbs should not be prohibited until bulbs have been developed that are proven to pose no significant health risks.”

We would like to ask LightAware supporters to sign and circulate this petition.
You can sign it here:

LightAware Meeting with Public Health England

In July, Eleanor Levin, Glen Johnson and Dr John Lincoln from LightAware met with Dr John O’Hagan and Dr Marina Khazova from Public Health England at their offices in Didcot.

We had a very wide ranging discussion, which included the need for greater research, especially published case studies on adverse reactions to lighting, and the difficulties in achieving this. We also discussed the EU SCHEER Report, for which Dr O’Hagan was rapporteur (writer), the original ban on incandescent lighting and the current Single Lighting Regulation, and the response of the UK Government to these events, the relative merits of CFLs and LEDs, the ability of employers to make adjustments for light sensitive people, the needs of the older eye, the human need for darkness, LED street lighting and much more. Dr O Hagan said it was still possible to investigate the environment of a light sensitive person if requested by a medical specialist but permission is needed from property owners. We will try and move this forward as it could be a vital step in finding out what aspects of lighting is affecting the sufferer and also in providing a much needed case study. We will also be contacting PHE again to ask for advice on what employers can do to help light sensitive people in the workplace.

LightAware Meeting with the Office of the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland

In September, LightAware Trustees met with Dr Andrew Riley, Senior Medical Officer and Dr Colin N Ramsay, Consultant Epidemiologist from the office of the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, at St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh. We discussed LightAware’s concerns particularly the health issues arising from LED, how lighting is coordinated across different Scottish Government Departments, the EU SCHEER Report and how the Scottish Government could help LightAware raise awareness of lighting issues. As advised in this meeting, we have now written to the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland asking for better coordination on lighting issues between different government departments and for more research into lighting and health. We also asked for the circulation of LightAware factsheets on access to buildings and access to employment.

Darc room seminar - ‘Human Centric Lighting’

In September LightAware Trustee John Lincoln attended the Dark Room Workshop on ‘Human Centric Lighting’ in London. The discussion was led by Dr. Karolina M. Zielinska-Dabkowska RIBA, IALD, IES, MSLL who is a LightAware Advisor.

The other speakers at the workshop were:
Mark Ridler (Director of Lighting at BDP)
Rebecca Weir (Creative Director at Light IQ)
Stephen Lisk (Lighting Designer and current President of CIBSE)
Iain Carlile (Lighting Designer and current President of the SLL)

The discussion ranged from the value of ‘human-centric’ and ‘circadian’ lighting to the effect of blue light at night on anticancer cells and DNA repair. The need for more research on lighting was also discussed. LightAware were able to contribute fully to this important discussion and bring up our concerns regarding lighting and health.

We heard that lighting designers have dilemma with ‘human-centric lighting’ because clients have heard of circadian lighting and think that it might help employee productivity, and manufacturers are advertising it intensively. Lighting designers would like to see more research on its effect on people before installing it, but are being pushed by clients to install it. More scientific work is needed as the current science was very thin. Both CIBSE and the Society of Lighting want better lighting and would like to be involved in peer-reviewed research. LightAware has now written to CIBSE and RIBA as the main professional bodies engaged in building design to engage with them on these issues.

Electronic Ink

Review of Dasung Paperlike Pro

Light-sensitive people have been asking about this new technology, and so we asked LightAware Trustee Eleanor Levin to tell us how she finds it.
(Just to clarify: LightAware are not endorsing this product and have not received any funding or similar from the company. This is a personal opinion)

Because using screens gives me eye pain and headache, I have been waiting a long time for an electronic ink screen to appear on the market. Now it has and I am the proud owner of a Dasung Paperlike Pro. This is an original kindle-style screen, which displays black text on a grey background and the screen has absolutely no backlight or lighting of any kind.

I would say that this screen has its strengths and its limitations but it has basically completely changed my life in terms of using a computer. Whereas before this was a huge struggle, I can now do tasks on the computer and use the internet for as long as I need without any problems at all. Basically, the screen is good if what you want to work with is text. It displays text very well so for typing and writing emails there is no problem.

The problems come if you want to do more than that. There is no colour so you can’t for example put colour into a text or see colour on the internet. It is hard to see photos on it. I have for example bought some clothes on the internet using this screen and had very little idea what they were going to look like till they arrived! You can listen to a video but not really see what is going on. You could not attempt anything like graphic design, photo or video editing on this screen. So whether it is going to work for you depends on what you want to use it for.

The actual screen is 27cm x 20 cm with a black plastic surround and it comes with a stand. Apart from the stand, which is relatively flimsy, the screen and the cables etc all seem to very good quality and nicely made. You plug it into a computer using both hdmi and usb cables which come with the screen. The screen itself is quite shiney and can reflect back a bit if there is an overhead light in the room, which may be a problem for some people. Part of the pack, which includes the screen, a stand, a memory stick with a set up programme and leads, is an anti-glare film. Despite its limitations, this screen has been absolutely wonderful for me and I would recommend giving it a try if you find conventional screens difficult to use.

LightAware letter in the Guardian

LightAware Trustees Dr John Lincoln and Eleanor Levin have recently contributed to two discussion regarding lighting published by the Guardian Newspaper.

On October 4th we responded to an article concerning children and problems with sleep:
Click here to read the letter.
On 5th November we responded to a further article on a similar subject:
Click here to read the letter.

Fundraising

All this work and more is still being undertaken by a small group of hugely committed individuals, most of whom are juggling LightAware work with their own light-related health issues and the impact of these on employment prospects.

Earlier this year, LightAware supporters responded to our request for a small, regular donation and this has enabled us to fund some administrative support for a few hours each week.
Please consider supporting the charity in this way if you can.
https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/5456#/DonationDetails