Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!decwrl!leaf.dec.com!jong
From: jong@leaf.dec.com (Typo? What tpyo?)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Radiation from the Mac screens?
Message-ID: <8907051728.AA08415@decwrl.dec.com>
Date: 5 Jul 89 20:18:00 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 28

The question of possible danger from Macintosh screens unfairly 
singles out Macs; the danger, if there is any, originates from 
ANY video-display device that employs an electron gun and circuitry
to manipulate it.  Is there any danger from such devices, then?

I call to your attention a series of three articles that ran in
The New Yorker on June 12, 19, and 26, 1989, called "Annals of
Radiation: The Danger of Electromagnetic Fields."  The author
described research that has suggested a link between 
extremely-low-frequency electromagnetic fields and a number of 
serious health problems.  The studies have been conducted by 
a number of researchers, and the results have been repeated
elsewhere.

While the radiation emitted from a VDT is not known to be harmful,
the circuitry that controls the electron gun, especially the
vertical-retrace circuits, emits 60-hertz electric and magnetic 
fields.  The electric field can be shielded, but the magnetic field
cannot be stopped, and it reaches out from the side and back of the
terminal.  Fields of that strength and frequency have been implicated
in health disorders by several researchers.

I would urge everyone to examine the article first-hand.  Unfortunately,
if these scientists have actually found a problem, VDTs are the
LEAST of our worries.  Suffice it to say that electricity may not be
our friend.

		-- Steve