Four Arguments for Elimination of Television

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I pored through Ott's books and papers trying to learn if he had thought to look into the effects of television phosphorescence while studying other fluorescents. I couldn't find any references and so I sought him out personally.

I asked Ott if he had studied the effects of the particular spectral emanations of color television: the red, blue and green phosphors. If so, what had he learned? If not, would he care to conjecture.

He said he hadn't done such research, although recently he had begun to think he should, but he added:

"We have studied the greens, reds, and blues that come from fluorescent lights, which of course would be very similar since both involve the excitation of mineral phosphors. It may not be precisely the same, but I've already proved what can happen with certain phosphorescences, particularly pink.

"In any event, I am sure they [TV phosphors] have three very narrow wavelength peaks, just as in fluorescent, but how broad the bands are, I just don't know." (A narrow wavelength peak would indicate a very high concentration within one spectral range; this would be suspect because it would more seriously concentrate and distort what the human ingests.)

Ott told me that color television was probably less harmful than black and white because color sets produce wider spectra, although seriously distorting the natural range of sunlight. On the other hand, color sets produce more X rays.

Ott volunteered another concern. He said that lately he had been thinking there might be a relationship between the light emanations from color television and other fluorescent lights and chemical food additives, causing hyperactivity in children.

"All those artificial colorings have a certain wavelength resonance. Dr. Ben Feingold of Kaiser Hospital has found that eliminating some of these artificial colorings and flavorings from children's diets will reduce their hyperactivity and also their allergic responses. What I'd like to do is take his findings and tie them to wavelength peaks of mercury-vapor lights, fluorescent lights and television light, because the heart of the matter could lie in an interaction of wavelength resonances between the chemicals and the light the body takes in. In television it could depend upon what the spectral peaks are. If they correspond to the wavelength absorption of some of these synthetic materials, then you can get tremendous reactions.

"It's the same with food. Different pigments have different wavelength resonances, so different food ingredients may resonate with different light ingredients. Let's say you eat a lot of spinach and raisins, both of which contain Iron. Iron has a certain wavelength resonance, as do all metals. In fact, all matter interacts with other matter which may be similarly resonating. This is why soldiers will break rank when they walk across a bridge. Too many of them walking in step sets up a wavelength pattern which has been known to resonate with that of the materials of the bridge and the whole thing can collapse. It's the same with food and light. If you eat a little bit of iron or calcium in your food and that wavelength is lacking in the light you get, then you're not going to get any benefit. On the other hand if you find yourself in a peak of light, whether it's television light or any other that reacts to iron, then you would have to watch your quantities, because if you get too much, you get an overreaction. [Allergy, hyperactivity.] It could be too much of one or not enough of the other. Now with sunlight, you don't have those kinds of peaks. I'm sure that one way or the other your diet of both food and light is responsible for a lot of different physical reactions that we haven't been able to measure yet."

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