Agenda Item # 10.1 - Jenny Dao | Received 03/20/2023CAUTION: This email originated from an External Source. Please use proper judgment and caution when opening
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From:Cindy McCormick
To:"Jenny Dao"; Andy Faber; City Clerk
Cc:Sean Marciniak; Natalie C. Kirkish
Subject:RE: EXTERNAL - Response to Soft Lights Foundation"s March 20, 2023 Comment Letter
Date:Monday, March 20, 2023 4:25:26 PM
Jenny –
I have copied the City Clerk so your letter below can be added to the public record.
Cindy
From: Jenny Dao <
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2023 4:23 PM
To: Cindy McCormick <Cindy.McCormick@ci.gilroy.ca.us>; Andy Faber <andy.faber@berliner.com>
Cc: Sean Marciniak < ; Natalie C. Kirkish
<
Subject: EXTERNAL - Response to Soft Lights Foundation's March 20, 2023 Comment Letter
Dear Ms. McCormick,
We have reviewed further public comment received by the City from the Soft Lights Foundation,
concerning the proposed electronic billboard ordinance, and wish to respond to this comment.
Please include this response in the administrative record of proceedings.
The Soft Lights Foundation submits a letter that contains allegations that digital billboards cause
various diseases, without supporting evidence. The letter refers to various studies, including a study
written wholly in French, but these studies constitute generalized studies (e.g., they do not concern
digital billboards) that do not show causation in any remote sense. What the Soft Lights Foundation
has done is made a claim and scoured the internet for studies about light and disease, without
making any effort to curate its information or demonstrate how it evidences the assertions made.
We note the Soft Lights Foundation is not an expert in epidemiology or lighting. Under the law (and
common sense), this information does not constitute substantial evidence of anything.
For example, the article “Light at Night and Cause-Specific Mortality Risk in Mainland China: A
Nationwide Observational Study” by Yao Lu et al. studies the correlations between light at night
(LAN) and all-cause mortality rate (which includes a wide range of human diseases such as neuron
system diseases, digestive system diseases, cancer, respiratory, and more) across 579 counties in
mainland China by looking at the relative risk of mortality by an increase of 100 nW/cm2/sr in LAN
exposure (basically, how much more mortality an increase of 100 nW/cm2/sr in LAN exposure
brings). This article also takes into account possible confounding factors such as daily temperature,
humidity, particular matter PM2.5, sex, age, and GDP. This article finds that there is a correlation
between increased risk of mortality and increased exposure to LAN, but there are two fundamental
potential problems their analytical method might pose:
This article uses “relative risk” method, which presents two potential problems:
Confounding variables: the use of relative risk assumes that there are no confounding
variables that could affect the relationship between the exposure and outcome. However, if
there are other variables that are related to both the exposure and outcome, then the relative
risk may not accurately represent the true association.
Although this article takes into account 6 potential confounding factors such as daily
temperature, daily humidity, daily particular matter PM2.5, age, sex, and GDP, and still
finds a statistical correlation between increased exposure to LAN and mortality rates,
there are several confounding factors that this article fails to account for such as
proximity to agricultural lands, lifestyle (smoking habits, alcohol consumption, work-life
balance, exercise levels, etc.), and family health history.
Base rate fallacy: the use of relative risk can lead to the base rate fallacy, which is the
tendency to focus on the relative increase in risk rather than the absolute risk. This can lead to
overestimating the importance of a particular risk factor. For example, even if LAN poses a
very low absolute risk of cancer, it could still pose a high relative risk of cancer when
compared to the nonexposure group. A high relative risk does not implicate a high absolute
risk. Here, this article looks at an increase in the all-cause mortality rate per 100 nW/cm2/sr
increase in daily LAN and finds that an increased LAN exposure of 100 nW/cm2/sr increases
the mortality rate by 8%. (RR = 1.08, 95% confidence interval 1.05-1.11.) However, if the base
rate is really low (let’s say 0.000001), then an increase of 8% would mean nothing in terms of
absolute risk.
It is this type of scientific rigor that must be applied, and which this project opponent has failed to
undertake. It is symptomatic of other claims. For instance, the commenter also includes a laundry
list of links and reports that cover a variety of lighting sources, such as touchscreens, phones, and
other devices.
A digital billboard has a limited light footprint, casting light no more than 250 feet. Motorists pass by
such signs in a matter of seconds, in contrast to the myriad hours they spend contending with
computer screens and mobile devices and other sources of LED light. To claim that digital advertising
displays have any effect contradicts the findings of the City’s independent, environmental expert.
We ask the City disregard this information, as it is not evidence – neither from the standpoint of
logic or law.
Jenny Dao
Huong (Jenny) Dao
Associate
Hanson Bridgett LLP
(925) 746-8473 Direct
(925) 746-8490 Fax
jdao@hansonbridgett.com
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