July 1, 2024 – Sasha Rodoy was victorious in her lawsuit against Barnet, UK, City Council, and the council was required to replace 4000K LED with 2200K LED. Here, Sasha has made a video showing the workers replacing the 4000K LEDs with 2200K LEDs.
July 1, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted the monthly LED Incident Reports to the FDA Radiation Health Customer Service. Reddit Posts, LED Headlight Petition Posts, LED Incident Reports, NYSPSC Case 21-02623.
June 30, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation sent a letter to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requesting that NHTSA comply with 21 U.S.C. 360ii(a) and cooperate and liaise with the US Food and Drug Administration to publish performance standards to limit the emissions of and exposure of people to, unnecessary Visible Light radiation from Light Emitting Diodes used in automotive lighting.
June 30, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation sent a letter to the US Environmental Protection Agency requesting that the EPA comply with 21 U.S.C. 360ii(a)(6) and cooperate and liaise with the US Food and Drug Administration to publish performance standards to limit the emissions of and exposure of people to, unnecessary Visible Light radiation from Light Emitting Diode products. Unnecessary Visible Light radiation is also known as “light pollution”.
June 29, 2024 – The magazine Stuff published an article about eye-searing LEDs appearing on every new electronic product. The Soft Lights Foundation contacted the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and requested that the CPSC comply with 21 U.S.C. 360ii(a)(6) and cooperate with the FDA to publish performance standards for LEDs on consumer products.
June 24, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation has provided constructive notice to the following US federal agencies that the use of LED products can create a dangerous and discriminatory condition: EPA, DOL, FAA, Access Board, NHTSA, FMCSA, FHWA, CPSC, DOE, FDA.
June 21, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted a public comment to Los Angeles Metro on the proposed Link Union Station project which describes the dangerous conditions and discriminatory barriers that LED lights can create and asks that these issues be addressed in the EIS/SEIR.
June 19, 2024 – In response to an article about the San Francisco Planning Commission’s approval of a giant LED sign for the Palace Hotel, the Soft Lights Foundation submitted a letter, notifying the Palace Hotel that an LED sign will violate 28 C.F.R. § 36.402(a)(1) and create a discriminatory barrier.
June 18, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation notified the city of Sacramento and other municipalities that LED flashing lights create a dangerous condition and that the city has a Due Care obligation to eliminate the dangerous condition.
June 16, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General requesting an investigation of FDA CDRH Director Jeffrey Shuren and his willful and reckless decision to not confer or liaise with any other federal agency on the regulation of LED products.
June 16, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation wrote a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf requesting a response to Representative Mike Thompson and Mark Pocan regarding regulation of automobile LED headlights.
June 11, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted the full set of public comments and associated files for New York State Public Service Commission case 21-02623 involving LED streetlights in the Village of Cambridge and the utility company National Grid to the Food and Drug Administration as evidence that LED Visible Light radiation is hazardous and must be regulated as required by 21 U.S.C. 360ii.
June 11, 2024 – US Representative Mike Thompson submitted a letter to the US House Energy and Commerce Committee requesting that the committee hold a hearing with NHTSA officials to discuss blinding LED headlights.
June 7, 2024 – Ophthalmologist Dr. Michael Chua published a video describing the impacts of LED headlights and he mentions the Soft Lights Foundation petition to ban blinding headlights.
June 7, 2024 – Social media video post shows perfect example of unregulated LED lights on a vehicle.
June 7, 2024 – NHTSA acknowledges the Soft Lights Foundation petition to regulate Correlated Color Temperature for headlights.
June 3, 2024 – LightED magazine reports on the FDA’s rejection of the Soft Lights Foundation petitions.
May 31, 2024 – Inside Lighting reports on the FDA’s decision to not regulate LED products.
May 30, 2024 – The Edison Report profiles the efforts of the Soft Lights Foundation.
May 29, 2024 –
Press Release: May 29, 2024
US FDA Decision: No Regulations for LED Products
On May 24, 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration rejected four Soft Lights Foundation petitions to regulate LED products. (https://www.softlights.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Final-Response-Citizen-Petitions-FDA-2022-P-1151-FDA-2023-P-0233-FDA-2023-P-3828-FDA-2023-P-3879.pdf)
In summary, the FDA’s position is that the FDA should not regulate LED products, that the FDA has no intention of regulating LED products, and that the FDA will not collaborate with any other federal agency to regulate LED products.
This FDA ruling has major policy and constitutional implications. As noted in a history of the 1968 Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act, one of the reasons that Congress passed the law directing the FDA to regulate electromagnetic radiation from electronic products was to provide federal regulatory oversight that was previously handled at the local and state level. (https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8846732/Tran06.pdf).
Since the FDA is the only federal agency with Congressional authority to regulate LED products, the FDA ruling means that all other federal agencies, including NHTSA, DOE, OSHA, CPSC, EPA, Access Board, FAA, FHWA, and others are blocked from publishing regulations for LED vehicle headlights, LED street lights, LED light bulbs, LED flashing lights on emergency vehicles, LED office lights, LED appliance indicator lights, or any other LED product, even if those LED products cause harm.
The FDA’s decision to not regulate LED products thus pushes regulation of LED products to state and local governments, which is likely an unconstitutional shift of regulatory authority from federal agencies to state and local agencies, and a clear violation of the Congressional mandate codified in 21 U.S.C. 360ii.
Without an intervention by Congress or the Courts, municipalities, businesses, manufacturers, and employers are each now forced to develop and publish their own policy for LED products to ensure the health, safety, and civil rights of the public and the protection of the environment, and a failure by an entity to establish the necessary health, safety, and civil rights policies in relation to the entity’s use or manufacture of unregulated and unsafe LED products makes the entity liable for tort or discrimination claims due to negligence or a failure to provide a duty of care.
Contact:
Mark Baker, President, Soft Lights Foundation
mbaker@softlights.org
www.softlights.org
May 28, 2024 – On May 24, 2024, the FDA denied all Soft Lights Foundation petitions to regulate LED products in a single letter.
May 28, 2024 – Australia. Parliament House worker has seizure after request for lighting change not acted on.
May 27, 2024 – This photo of a Wells Fargo using LED outdoor lighting was submitted to the Ban Blinding LEDs Facebook group. The photo illustrates that the lights are using energy despite the absence of anyone using the lights, that the lights are a public health and safety hazard due to the high glare and blue wavelength light, and that the lights have no shielding to prevent light trespass nuisance.
May 27, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted the following comment to the International Association of Fire Fighters:
Dear Sean DeCrane, Director of Health and Safety Operational Services, International Association of Fire Fighters, I was notified today of this important article research study: June 30, 2021 – Study of Heart Rate and Blood Pressure Subject to Pulsed LED Lighting – The findings indicate that pulsed light will cause a deviation of heart rate and blood pressure from that under stable light. Results showed that after a short lighting period (20 min), heart rate and blood pressure were significantly higher under 40 Hz pulsed than that under stable light.
In conjunction with numerous other studies about flashing lights, this study confirms that it makes no sense to use flashing lights on emergency vehicles which will increase blood pressure, impair vision, interfere with cognitive functioning, and increase the risk to the lives of fire fighters, when static, low-luminance lights provide the needed warning without the adverse impacts on health and safety.
May 25, 2024 – Mark Baker posted the following comment to the NYSPSC comments for case 32-E-0727. (https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?MatterCaseNo=23-E-0727)
On May 20, 2024, Inside Lighting published an article about researchers examining the cause of purple LED streetlights made by American Electric Lighting, which is a subsidiary of Acuity Brands, and which is the manufacturer of the LED streetlights that have been installed in the Village of Cambridge by the utility company National Grid. (https://inside.lighting/news/24-05/heres-why-led-streetlights-are-turning-city-highway-purple). The article states, “Streetlights serve not only to illuminate roads and pathways but also to ensure the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers at night.” Given the clear statement that streetlights are provided “to ensure the safety of pedestrians”, if an LED streetlight causes a life-threatening seizure for some individuals, then the LED streetlight is an unsafe product, and thus a violation of National Grid’s tariff requiring National Grid to provide “safe” services.
The research organization is the LED Systems Reliability Consortium (LSRC). In this particular research study, the impacts of LED streetlights on individuals with epilepsy, migraines, autism, photophobia, PTSD, EMS, and other medical conditions was not studied. As has been demonstrated via epidemiological data collected by the Soft Lights Foundation, LED street lights can trigger non-epileptic and epileptic seizures, suicidal ideations, migraines, impaired cognitive functioning, and eye pain. The FDA has not published the Congressionally mandated performance standards for LED streetlights to ensure the safety of the public. Given that this article makes clear that streetlights are provided to ensure public safety and that a streetlight that merely turns purple becomes a safety hazard, an LED streetlight that causes members of the public to lose consciousness is certainly even more of a safety hazard. A declaration by the NYSPSC that LED streetlights are safe and pose no safety hazard would be in direct opposition to the evidence. A declaration that LED streetlights do pose a safety hazard would align with the evidence, and would require National Grid to remove the unsafe, unapproved, unregulated LED streetlights.
May 20, 2024 – The BBC reported that the town of Swanage in the county of Dorset, UK is changing it’s LED streetlights after only two years due to health reasons.
May 19, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted a complaint to the US Health and Human Services Office for Human Research Protections due to the FDA CDRH’s failure to regulate LED products and for allowing an uncontrolled, unsupervised real-world experiment involving human exposure to LED Visible Light radiation. On May 20, 2024, HHS OHRP responded that this issue does not fall within their jurisdiction.
May 17, 2024 – An article was published in the Bay Area Telegraph that refers to people buying Rough Service incandescent light bulbs as way to avoid purchasing low-quality and hazardous LED light bulbs.
May 17, 2024 – In response to the Soft Lights Foundation submission of 202 pages of comments representing over 60,000 individuals who signed the petition to ban blinding headlights, US DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent to the Soft Lights Foundation a letter stating that he cannot find time in his schedule to discuss the issue. In response to Secretary Buttigieg’s failure to shown concern for the health and safety of the public, members of the Reddit group r/fuckyourheadlights have renamed LED headlights as Buttigieg Lights and created a meme.
May 16, 2024 – Texas Public Radio published a podcast on the impacts of LED headlights on Jamie Troese in Pennsylvania, describing how LED headlights have essentially imprisoned her in her home.
May 15, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted a federal regulatory petition to NHTSA to set limits on Correlated Color Temperature for vehicle headlamps and daytime running lights.
May, 2024 – LED Applications Require Exposure Limits to Safeguard Consumers – Opinion article in Photonics Spectra mentions Mark Baker.
May 12, 2024 – Car and Driver magazine publishes an article about super-bright LED headlights that are frying our corneas.
May 10, 2024 – Mark Baker is a guest on the The Power Couple podcast and discusses LEDs and their impacts.
May 8, 2024 – The UK Parliament debates headlight glare. Transcript. Video.
May 7, 2024 – NBC News, Fort Meyers, Florida, aired a video on excessively bright LED headlights.
May 6, 2024 – Mark Baker filed a discrimination lawsuit against CBRE, Inc. and Petrovich Development Company, LLC for discrimination. Defendants declined to make a good faith effort to turn off an intense LED light, thus denying Plaintiff full and equal access to the shopping center.
May 4, 2024 – The San Francisco Standard reports that the Founder of Illuminate has claimed that their plan to add 50,000 LED lights to the San Francisco Bay Bridge is now funded. Adding tens of thousands of LED lights to the SF Bay Bridge will have a massive adverse impact on human and ecosystem health, and will create a discriminatory barrier for individuals with neurological disabilities. The Soft Lights Foundation has notified numerous decision makers at CalTrans, Bay Area Toll Authority Oversight Committee, Illuminate, and others that this project requires a CEQA analysis, NEPA analysis, and ADA Accommodation Plan.
May 3, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation assisted an individual with a light trespass nuisance issue by sending a letter to the Sammamish, Washington city council. Councilmember Amy Lam responded and contacted Code Enforcement. A case was opened, and Code Enforcement made a visit to the resident and asked them to solve the light trespass issue. The resident agreed to remove the offending light.
May 1, 2024 – The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile submitted a file to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on headlight glare as the following two documents:
GRE-90-20 – (FIA) Glare on Road Traffic: European consumer study 2024
GRE-90-40 – (FIA) European survey on glare in road traffic
Below are some stats from the report:
- 80 % of the respondents find the glare intolerable or annoying
- 50 % almost always or regularly feel dazzled
- 52 % of respondents pinch their eyes shut or even close them briefly
- 64 % have problems perceiving objects in the vicinity of the dazzling light source
- 25 % stated that they continued to see an image of the light source for a limited time after passing it (afterimage), or even felt pain
April 30, 2024 – Donald Berry started the change.org petition to ban blinding headlights in 2016. Today, Mr. Berry made a presentation to staff for US Representative Judy Chu in which he describes the impacts of LED lights and requests action from Congress.
April 27, 2024 – Resident Wins LED Street Light Court Case Against Council – Barnet, UK resident Sasha Rodoy settled a 4 year legal case with Barnet. The town agreed to switch the 4000K LED streetlights to 2200K. In this video, David Kurten, the host of this UK TNT Radio show, discusses the Sasha Rodoy lawsuit and blasts LED streetlights. If 4000K LED streetlights provide better safety and visual acuity, then why would Barnet agree to switch to 2200K? The obvious answer is that 4000K LED streetlights are unsafe and never should have been installed in the first place.
April 19, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted a 19-page report to Henderson, Nevada on the hazards and discriminatory nature of LED street lights.
April 18, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted 202 pages of comments from the Ban Blinding Headlights petition to the office of US Representative Mike Thompson to deliver to DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
March 29, 2024 – America’s Drivers Agree: LED Headlights Are Just too Bright – This story in the Wall Street Journal dispels some of the myths about LED headlights propagated by the government and industry.
March 20, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation received a letter from NHTSA stating that they have received our petition to set an overall limit on lower beam headlight intensity.
March 1, 2024 – The Soft Lights Foundation submitted a federal regulatory petition to NHTSA to set an overall limit on lower beam headlight intensity.
January 22, 2024 – Mark Baker filed a lawsuit against the FDA for failing to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act and for violating citizen’s 5th amendment rights.