Since when did flourescent bulbs become healthier for your eyes than incandescen!

Since when did flourescent bulbs become healthier for your eyes than incandescents?

When I was little my dad used to yell at me any time I was trying to read using flourescent lights, because it was KNOWN and PROVEN and DOCUMENTED that flourescent lights cause eye strain and loss in eye health and sight overall.

And when we moved into a new house, if they had flourescents lights anywhere (kitchen, bathroom, workshop), I helped my dad swap them out for incandescent fixtures instead.

And movies like "Joe vs. the Volcano" even poked fun at how horrible flourescent lights are in the workplace, and how people could become sick from being constantly immersed in flourescent light.

But now, all of a sudden, flourescent bulbs are the magic answer for everything. Incandescents, be gone!!!

I can see the news stories already, 15 years from now, when record numbers of people start needing glasses, and I'm sure the EnviroFundamentalists will just shrug their shoulders. "Well, we MEANT well."

Where are the studies showing flourescents are good for your eyesight?

Well, it might have been that the old fluorescents had magnetic ballasts, and cycled at ~60 times a second, whereas CFLs and many newer fluorescents have electronic ballasts, which cycle 20 thousand times a second or higher. I don't use incandescents because they are idiotically expensive to run, and have the side-effect of making the room an oven.