The EU Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHHER) have published their final opinion on the ‘Potential risk to human health of LEDs’. This opinion was agreed by the committee on the 5th-6th June 2018.
The following is the overall conclusion:
The SCHEER concludes that there is no evidence of direct adverse health effects from
LEDs in normal use (lighting and displays) by the general healthy population.
Some people report that they are sensitive to temporal light modulation from LEDs.
Children have a higher sensitivity to blue light and although emissions may not be
harmful, blue LEDs (between 400 nm and 500 nm) may be very dazzling and may
induce photochemical retinopathy, which is a concern especially for children below three
years of age.
Older people may experience discomfort with exposure to light that is rich in blue light.
Either discomfort glare or disability glare can be temporarily caused by vehicle LED
lights, and particularly daylight running lights and headlights.
Light sources that emit more short-wavelength light, as do some types of LEDs, will have
a larger effect on the circadian rhythms at equal optical radiance, duration and timing of
exposure. At the moment, it is not yet clear if this disturbance of the circadian system
leads to adverse health effects.