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The death rays that guard life
We disinfect water before we drink it. Why don’t we disinfect the air before we breathe it?
A century ago, germicidal light at 254 nanometers seemed to be a promising way of controlling pathogens by killing them in the air, but it turned out to cause irritation and cancer in the skin, and it was largely dropped when antibiotics became widespread. Despite the lack of clear economic upside, we are already seeing some early adoption among respected institutions: Mount Sinai Hospital, for example, has far-UVC lamps installed in its Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses. But Leal had an opportunity to prevent such a loss for others: he quietly directed the addition of chlorine to the drinking water supply in Jersey City, hiring engineer George Fuller to design and build a system for dripping a diluted bleach solution into Boonton Reservoir.
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