In various spectrograms I've seen, yes, there is often a little peak in the 297nm area for mercury vapour bulbs, but in the fluorescent spectrograms the intensity is pretty much a constant level throughout the range that produces vitamin D3. As I was trying to demonstrate, for the statement given to be true, that a weaker intensity from a MV bulb is better at vit.D3 production than a greater intensity from fluorescent, then a fluorescent bulb would have to have basically NO intensity whatsoever in the primary, optimal range (let's say 293-300nm) and high intensity in the outlying ranges (290nm and 305nm), which I have never seen any spectrogram present as such (that, or for some reason if there were an inverse relationship between UVB intensity and vitamin D3 production - something that has never been demonstrated in the intensity range we're talking about here). Nevertheless, the author has presented a general intensity for the general range of both bulbs, and to say one is better than the other just because of the style flies in the face of understood science.
Personally, though, I wish the industry would get off its collective arse and start mass producing appropriate LED sources. You would be able to be much more selective over the wavelengths produced (ie. we could completely avoid all the damaging wavelengths instead of trying to construct the bulbs to filter out these), power consumption would be drastically lower (albeit there would no longer be a heat component) and most importantly to my opinion is the lifespan of the device would be far, far, far greater than either fluorescent or MV bulbs. Nothing burns my arse quite like paying $60 for a MV and getting little more than a few weeks out of it before it starts acting faulty.
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