Four Arguments for Elimination of Television

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Cancer wasn't the only reaction to artificial light. When mice were kept under one particular pink fluorescent for long periods of time, their tails would literally wither and fall off.

Under a certain dark blue fluorescent, the cholesterol level in the blood of the mice rose sharply; male mice became obese, although the females did not.

Ott worked with other animals as well.

A red filter placed over ordinary incandescent light was found to weaken and rupture the heart cells of chick embryos. A blue incandescent light placed over the cages of chinchillas increased the number of females in the litter; a similar light increased the female population of some fish in a tank.

Other light changes caused aggressiveness, hyperactive behavior, aimlessness and disorientation, as well as changes in sexual patterns among mice, rats and other animals.

In his book, and in a later three-part article in the medical journal Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Monthly (July 1974), Ott spelled out how he believes light affects us.

He first explains the connection between the light we receive in our eyes and our cell structure. This is the chain of events: Light passes through the eye to contact the retina. The retina has what Ott calls a "dual function." The first is the obvious one: translating the light into images by way of channels to the brain. The second, equally important function is for the light rays, aside from their role as image creators, to pass via neurochemical channels into and through the pineal and pituitary glands and therefore into the animal and human endocrine systems.

Identifying this series of connections is not original with Ott. Many researchers, some of whom I shall cite later, have found that this interaction affects hormonal structures, sexuality, fertility, growth and many other aspects of animal and human cell structure.

Ott says the kind of light that passes through the eyes determines the reactions of human cells. His experiments on plants and animals were attempts to demonstrate that even minute changes in wavelength spectra (what we call "color")—say, between one kind of artificial light and another, or between natural light and artificial light-cause important biochemical alterations.

Critical to understanding all of this is the term "light," which does not apply to a single, monolithic element. When we speak of "light" we ordinarily do not make distinctions between natural light or artificial light; nor do we make the distinction between kinds of artificial light. We tend to lump all of them together. One flips the switch to "on" and what one gets is "light." When it is "on" one can see. But there is where the similarity ends.

Cancer wasn't the only reaction to artificial light. When mice were kept under one particular pink fluorescent for long periods of time, their tails would literally wither and fall off.

Natural sunlight is made up of all the radiant wavelengths of energy (spectra) that fit within what we call "light." What's more, it contains them in a specific mixture. So much of this and so much of that.

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