Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 27/10/2018 09:45:11

Title: Are daily retinal scans bad for our health?
Post by: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 27/10/2018 09:45:11

Are daily (or almost daily) retinal scans bad for our eye health or health in general? If you at the Naked Scientists had to use retinal scans (for security) to enter your office would any of you not be ok with it?

Title: Re: Are daily retinal scans bad for our health?
Post by: evan_au on 27/10/2018 10:24:53

There are international standards for eye-safety of lasers and light sources in general.
They seem to be based on scientific evidence about the maximum brightness that will cause damage to the retina.
I am sure that commercial retina scanners would be tested against these standards.

I have had occasional retina scans from an optometrist using a visible red laser- while the brightness is uncomfortable during the scan (it made me want to blink), my eyes seemed to recover within a few seconds.

Apparently, commercial scanners for security applications use infra-red light, which would not cause the same discomfort as visible light.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinal_scan