2 months ago i had one of these pop in the light fitting but i left it for about 2 weeks incase there was an electrical problem so i let mt landlord dealwith it and change it now i have burning in my skin which i havent had since i had amalgams and tingling lips i also developed bronchitis my kids have ulcers and my little girl is complaining of fuzzy feeling in her head i didnt even know these had mercury in them saw my doctor about it and he said not to worry cause the mercury vapor has probably gone now i dont believe this but he didnt take me serious at all so no help how would i know if mercury vapour was still in my home ? another thing to worry about as if mercury poisoning from amalgams wasnt enough.

These bulbs are deadly and should never have been manufactured...


"Mercury concentration in the study room air often exceeds the Maine Ambient Air Guideline (MAAG) of 300 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m3) for some period of time, with short excursions over 25,000 ng/m3, sometimes over 50,000 ng/m3, and possibly over 100,000 ng/m3 from the breakage of a single compact fluorescent lamp. A short period of venting can, in most cases, significantly reduce the mercury air concentrations after breakage. Concentrations can sometimes rebound when rooms are no longer vented, particularly with certain types of lamps and during/after vacuuming. Mercury readings at the one foot height tend to be greater than at the five foot height in non vacuumed situations."

Continued: http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflreport.htm

Recent screw in florescent bulbs seem to have much less mercury than older ones. Some say the new ones have less than 5 mg of mercury. A mercury dental filling might have over a gram of mercury, which is 200 times as much. While no mercury exposure is good, the alternatives of using very expewnsive LED bulbs or using incandescent bubs which consume 4x the power don't seem too appealing. At least they are continually trying to reduce the mercury in these bulbs as much as possible, and these bulbs won't break that often with proper care.

Perhaps within 5 years LED bulbs for the home will be under $5. Already they are affordable enough for use in many flashlights.

There has been talk of banning the sale of incandescent bulbs(but perhaps just for standard sizes where inexpensive screw in florescents are available).

One other thing to consider. Around half the electricity in the US is produced by burning coal. This releases huge amounts of mercury into the atmosphere. If one calculates the mercury released to generate the extra 47 watts of electricity(a cfl bulb uses 13 watts vs 60 for the comparable incandescent) for the number of hours florescent bulbs are used in home before one on average breaks times the number of bulbs, then the cfl bulbs are still much less of a mercury threat than power hogging incandescent bulbs. Yes, the world is not perfect, and bright LED bubs for home lighting are not under $1 each (but perhaps in 20 years they might be?).

"Mercury content and disposal have long been concerns with CFLs. However, ConsumerReports.org finds that most brands now contain well under the required 5 milligrams or less of mercury per bulb, so this is less of a concern. Some manufacturers use low mercury content and environmentally friendly packaging as selling points. Still, care should be taken if a CFL breaks in order to avoid unnecessary exposure to even minute amounts of mercury. "

"Litetronics also makes low-mercury compact fluorescent light bulbs that limit mercury content to 1 milligram and use lead-free glass and solder. "

http://www.consumersearch.com/light-bulbs/compact-fluorescent-light-bulbs

I have researched this issue in great depth and I have to strongly disagree with you on this one.

There's a lot more to the story and the government-supplied information is as fatally omittive as the ADA-supplied information about amalgam fillings.

In short, the virtually-forced switch to CFLs is another monumental disaster-in-the-making that kills consumers while benefiting the pharmaceutical industry. Think of it as an giant amalgam filling permanently mounted inside your home.

More info coming soon.

if you are so worried about mercury in cfl bulbs, then get the Litetronics bulbs with less than a milligram of mercury in each. Now the allowable maximum is up to 5 mg of mercury per bulb. Old cfl bulbs had up to 30 mg of mercury in each. Mercury fillings average around a gram of mercury in each, the amount in 1,000 Litetronics cfl bulbs.

http://www.flcv.com/amalg6.html