News Stories

3D glasses could cause cancer, Dominican doctor warns

[Philip Lelyveld comment: The doctor claims that the battery in the glasses and the IR emitter sending signals to the glasses could damage eyes. Key quote by the story’s reporter: “While the warning should of course be taken seriously, the analysis does seem to originate from a conceptual mistake regarding the way that active 3D glasses operate.”]

[RapidTVNews]

The video entertainment industry should do more to alert viewers about irreversible eye damage that could result from the use of 3D glasses.

The astonishing warning was launched by Doctor Tomás Vargas Martínez, president of the Institute Against Glaucoma Blindness (INCOCEGLA), a medical institution from the Dominican Republic.

Speaking this weekend during an event organised as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebrations of INCOCEGLA’s foundation, its president said he was particularly concerned about the potentially harmful effects of active 3D glasses.  …

The alleged health hazard to human vision that the Dominican ophthalmologist is warning about arises from the introduction of the latest generation of active 3D glasses. These devices receive the sync signal wirelessly through an infrared (IR) beam transmitted by either the TV frame or a standalone unit located near it. They are also battery-powered to control the shutter mechanism.

According to Doctor Vargas, there are studies that prove that IR beams can alter both human eye and skin tissue. “These waves might be invisible to humans,” said the expert. “But they are present in the user’s glasses near the eye and – at this stage – we can’t determine the degree of damage to the conjunctiva, the eyelid skin, the crystalline lens and the retina, with the potential risks being [the occurrence of] degenerative diseases such as skin cancer and tumours of the cornea.”

While the warning should of course be taken seriously, the analysis does seem to originate from a conceptual mistake regarding the way that active 3D glasses operate.  …

Dominican media which covered the presentation quoted the INCOCEGLA president as saying that these devices use “batteries which emit infrared radiation towards the LCD lens inside the active glasses”.

As explained above, the IR beams in question (which, by the way, are similar to those of a TV remote or a garage door opener), are not emitted by the 3D glasses, while the batteries inside these devices are there for a different reason.  …

See the full story here: http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2011100615864/3d-glasses-could-cause-cancer-dominican-doctor-warns.html

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