Letter to the Editor -- Dr. Julia Golier on Health Risks of Lighting Chambers Field
To the Editor:
In a letter to the Editor, "Circadian Rhythm Not Affected by Lighting on Athletic Field," dated October 23, 2013, the authors assert that the proposed installation of permanent stadium lighting on Chambers Field would be safe. As a parent and physician, I have serious concerns about this claim.
The mainstream medical community increasingly recognizes that exposure to excess light at night is hazardous to human health. The American Medical Association's (AMA) 2012 position paper entitled "Light Pollution: Adverse Health Outcomes of Nighttime Lighting" notes that breast cancer is the most serious health outcome linked with nighttime lighting; both breast and prostate cancer risks have been found to be increased in regions with the brightest levels of outdoor lighting. Other disorders associated with light pollution are obesity, diabetes, depressive disorders, and reproductive problems.
The potential carcinogenic effects of light pollution are believed to be due to the suppression of melatonin, a hormone with tumor-suppressing properties. Melatonin suppression is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon for which a single threshold of light level can be determined. It is dose-dependent and now-believed to occur at levels previously thought to be too dim to have any effect. In fact, the AMA’s position on human sensitivity is quite clear: "Even low intensity nighttime light has the capability of suppressing melatonin release."
The aforementioned letter correctly states that "the AMA report gives no specific measures or thresholds for what is a safe or unsafe amount of nighttime exposure." Since there are no standards about what level is safe, it is inconsistent for the authors to selectively define a level or to assert that it would be harmless to brightly illuminate a large athletic field with downward- and upward-facing metal halide lights atop 70- to 80-foot towers along with additional lights on the pedestrian walkways, especially as the field is immediately adjacent to many homes in a densely populated village.
The letter also seeks to reassure us that since all-night-long exposure isn't anticipated, the exposure would be harmless. While the all-night exposures associated with shift work and constant jet lag are the worst types of exposure, they are not the only significant ones. The interruption of circadian rhythms is experienced in all persons exposed to excess light at night even if they have a normal sleep/wake cycle.
The current state of the science does not permit a definitive determination of the additive health risks to individual neighbors or to persons on the field from the proposed stadium lights. But that does not give us permission to deny there are potential health risks and to impose them on others.
No matter how shielded, sports field lights cause light pollution. Lighting technology has evolved, but there is no way to satisfactorily mitigate the many negative effects--biological, ecological, and aesthetic--that stadium lighting would have on our village.
As has been clearly documented in public forums over the past few months, stadium lighting would most especially harm families living close to Chambers Field, including my own. Therefore, I am grateful that the Bronxville Board of Education is now diligently evaluating alternative field space options. As they deliberate, I respectfully urge them to limit the options to those that could potentially help all our students without causing harm to any of them.
Julia A. Golier, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Bronxville, NY
November 6, 2013
Editor's Note: MyhometownBronxville does not fact-check statements in letters to the editor, and the opinions do not necessarily reflect the thinking of its staff. Its objective in publishing letters to the editor is to give air to diverse thoughts and opinions of residents in the community.
