Cathode Ray Tubes – Asbestos of My Generation

So, asbestos started out as a good thing, made buildings less likely to explode into flames.  It was only later that we realized it was killing the people who were breathing it.

I declare that sitting in front of a CRT for 35+ years has exposed my face to countless attacks by high energy particles. And probably a million people just like me, and we’ll probably all end up with cataracts to boot.

But our economy until fairly recently has been completely dependent on CRTs, so it was not in our interest to be told they actually could hurt us.  Sure, on occasion they tell us that the low frequency (60 hertz) radiation can be damaging, but that’s just a plausible deniability coverup. “Well, we had SOME idea something was wrong” when they only warned us about something none of us felt particularly afraid of.

But if they had said “Oh, you’re staring into an xray machine with a little bit of glass that filters out almost all of it!” I think we would have shown more alarm.

Anyway, now that we are all converting to Liquid Crystal (just got my first official 20″” CRT replacement from DELL and it’s totally fab!) it is almost time for the truth to get out, and the lawsuits to begin.

OK, this conspiracy theory is not one of my favorites, because I suspect it might actually be true, and I am not looking forward to going blind.

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