wrote in message

Those of us on alt.lasers are having several discussions of this same
topic. Our take is that this is a lot of nonsense, possibly with some
ulterior motive on the part of the government. One person wrote a
letter to one of the government agencies involved, and posted the
reply. The government stands by their story that a doctor (notice, one
doctor) found retinal burns on the pilots he examined (laser source
unknown). We still think it's a bunch of nonsense (several of us have
worked around a lot of lasers, and I, for one, have a degree in Laser
Electro-Optic Technology).

"Pilots"? More than one? Anyway, I didn't know that there was an alt.laser
so I'll xpost this to there.

How many instances of retinal damage has there been to spectators of laser
entertainment shows? I've never heard of one. Although not legal in the
US, in other countries, laser entertainment systems with output power of
over twenty watts are regularly used directly on audiences. The laser is
"scanned" using fast moving mirrors or put through various types of
diffraction optics. The levels are far lower at any given observer point.
But they're still often well over 5mW.

moo