Tillie - Very interesting source! It seems that this specialist is just as concerned about UV as IR.
Ed - The first link you posted very reasonably references the 1998 NIOSH study at SGB. I don't know if Mike was aware of the other two papers I referenced or not at the time he wrote the articles in both of the links you provided, but most of what he says is consistent with the latter, also.
My only observation is that I think folks who have read his first article but not his second article might have gotten confused about the section in the former where he mentions UV hazards as being a myth. I get the sense that some folks might have stopped reading right there and concluded that they didn't need any eye-wear (maybe missing the sections about visible and IR hazards).
In his second article, which seems very much in line with other sources about visible light hazards, he implies that UV is an issue, so there might be something he'd like to clarify or reconcile between his articles. The two papers I quoted also indicate that UV (UV-B specifically) is of a concern, which I've also seen elswhere, but that it appears to be a controversial subject. In addition to what Mike lists as eye-health risks from visible light, I've seen such eye diseases as blepharospasm, conjunctival hyperemia, epithelial granules and pterygium mentioned as associated with long-term acute UV. Seems like UV influences the tissues around the eye as well as the eye itself.
What also seems to cloud the UV issue is that it can apparently take decades for some of these eye diseases to appear, making it hard to know if the culprit was was all those years playing volleyball on the beach or all those years doing glass.
Beth - thank you for also working on getting an equipment rental quote! Can your contact rent the kind of equipment NIOSH used, or something similar? It's listed on page three of NIOSH's SGB Gathering report.
Linda
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