Filling your home with mercury

If you've fallen for the compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulb scam, you're the one getting screwed -- in more ways than one.

Not only are these things expensive and dim, they're also dangerous. A reader named Ken wrote in to say that these bulbs did a number on him.

"I think the new CFL light bulbs are death," he wrote. "I am extremely angry at them for allowing them to be sold without a warning on the box!!"

Allowing? Heck, Ken -- they're MANDATING it. CFLs are the law of land, passed by those dim bulbs in Congress. Starting in 2012, America's beacon of freedom is going to be a mercury-laden death ray -- and that light will be shining on YOU.

There's emerging evidence that these bulbs can cause seizures and dizziness, worsen migraine headaches and send lupus patients doubling over in agony. They've been linked to skin disorders and even cancer.

I can only wonder what else they'll discover when hundreds of millions of people are forced to sit under these bulbs all day, every day... at home, at work, and everywhere in between.

Even worse, CFL bulbs are filled with mercury. They'll tell you it's a "tiny" amount, but a single bulb contains enough mercury to contaminate 6,000 gallons of water.

Does that sound safe to you?

Let me shine a little light in this one: Small amounts of mercury can lay waste to your central nervous system, and all it takes is a whiff, taste or touch. Mercury can damage your vision, ruin your speech, wreck your hearing, turn you into a herky-jerky spastic, and give you the rash of a lifetime.

Ever hear the phrase "mad as a hatter?" It's because hatters worked with mercury -- and it literally drove them nuts.

And when the greenies get their way, we'll all be mad hatters. After all, light bulbs break -- and it's just a matter of time before you and your family are exposed to mercury from a shattered CFL bulb.

All that, and I haven't even touched on what's going to happen when all the mercury from discarded and "recycled" bulbs seeps into the ground and ends up in the already-filthy water supply.

I'm no fan of ordinary incandescent lights, either -- I'm convinced they're responsible for poor health and cataracts. But in this case it's a lesser of two evils. And if you hope to keep using them, you'd better stock up now.

Soon, you won't have a choice.

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.