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Has anyone found anything on the health implications of mounting 220nm lamps [1] indoors, beyond the issue of damaging human DNA? In other words, if you assume

Has anyone found anything on the health implications of mounting 220nm lamps [1] indoors, beyond the issue of damaging human DNA? In other words, if you assume those lamps to be safe to living cells due to the light not penetrating beyond the first layer of dead skin cells, what other problems might there be? Our skin surface contains a lot of living bacteria. Different strains seem compete with each other, and for example an overgrowth of staphylococcus aureus seems to be correlated with skin issues. In that sense living bacteria protect our skin. How would an far-UVC 'antibiotic' lamp influence bacterial repopulation later? Either on skin and in spaces. Would it impair immune system development? Viruses seem far more fragile than bacteria, so perhaps a low-power far UVC-lamp will be enough to kill viruses but leave the bacterial populations on skin and objects intact [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w

fabian2k 7y ago
You get a nasty sunburn from resonably strong UV lamps. I've seen that happen with people being very careless in the lab when using a UV bed for gel electrophoresis. These are UV lamps strong enough to visualize ethidium bromide, I'm not even sure if they're strong enough to kill bacteria quickly, though I'd guess they might be. UV lamps are really not something you should point at humans.
- RL_Quine 7y ago
  It also burns your retinas and produces ozone.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    No optical damage in this wavelength range (although the ozone may still be an issue.) Suggest reading the articles people have linked to in this thread, pretty interesting stuff. I had no idea that there was a portion of the UVC spectrum that doesn't have significant harmful effects on humans.
    - godelski 7y ago
      UV definitely can damage the eyes. I suspect what the paper meant is not the wavelength, but the power. Because UV also burns skin. I've seen it happen. Both power and wavelength matter.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Far-UVC deactivates pathogens without causing damage to skin or eye tissue.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
        Sigh
dreamcompiler 7y ago
> Viruses seem far more fragile than bacteria This is a complicated issue, partially because viruses are not "alive" in the way bacteria are, so it can be tricky to define what "killing" them means. In the case of coronavirus, plain soap is like kryptonite to them. Whereas triclosan--which kills many bacteria--does almost nothing to coronavirus.

fabian2k 7y ago

You get a nasty sunburn from resonably strong UV lamps. I've seen that happen with people being very careless in the lab when using a UV bed for gel electrophoresis. These are UV lamps strong enough to visualize ethidium bromide, I'm not even sure if they're strong enough to kill bacteria quickly, though I'd guess they might be. UV lamps are really not something you should point at humans.

RL_Quine 7y ago
It also burns your retinas and produces ozone.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  No optical damage in this wavelength range (although the ozone may still be an issue.) Suggest reading the articles people have linked to in this thread, pretty interesting stuff. I had no idea that there was a portion of the UVC spectrum that doesn't have significant harmful effects on humans.
  - godelski 7y ago
    UV definitely can damage the eyes. I suspect what the paper meant is not the wavelength, but the power. Because UV also burns skin. I've seen it happen. Both power and wavelength matter.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Far-UVC deactivates pathogens without causing damage to skin or eye tissue.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Sigh

dreamcompiler 7y ago

> Viruses seem far more fragile than bacteria This is a complicated issue, partially because viruses are not "alive" in the way bacteria are, so it can be tricky to define what "killing" them means. In the case of coronavirus, plain soap is like kryptonite to them. Whereas triclosan--which kills many bacteria--does almost nothing to coronavirus.