Following the negative response to Valkyrae’s product announcement, the Twitch streamer said that she’d share “academic studies” with her fanbase shortly. These academic studies are also referenced on RFLCT’s homepage, though the studies in question are not directly mentioned, cited, or quoted. Valkyrae initially said that the RFLCT website would soon be updated with these studies, but she now says that isn’t going to happen.
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In a recent Youtube livestream, Valkyrae says that RFLCT will not be publishing its studies. She says that she recently learned that “their studies can’t be publicized,” clarifying that RFLCT’s research can’t be shared because it could “be stolen by other companies.” Valkyrae claims she was “very naive” about the situation, because she told her audience to expect these studies to be published when she now knows that they can’t be.
Valkyrae is not backing away from her support of RFLCT’s claims, however. In response to someone in her chat saying Valkyrae was ruining her reputation, she responded to say that she’s “literally seen the studies” while telling the commenter that all they did was a “1-second google search.” She does state, “I am not a chemist, I have never been to the lab in person,” but repeats, “I have seen the research and all that.” Despite her confidence in her own understanding of the research, Valkyrae has yet to offer a compelling argument for believing the claims of RFLCT or herself.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Yale’s director of aesthetic dermatology program Kathleen Suozzi referenced a 2019 study to say that patients exposed to blue light from a “powerful screen” on one side of their face over five days experienced no damage. Further, she noted that blue light from being in sunlight even a few minutes “probably” causes more skin damage than even eight hours in front of a PC screen. However, she says that there’s little trustworthy research of blue light from screens causing damage at all.
Shari Marchbein, a board-certified dermatologist in New York, says it’s “impossible” to say whether blue light from screens causes damage. Instead, she recommends focusing on skin damage from sunlight, saying ultraviolet light is significantly more concerning even over the sun’s much higher doses of blue light. In other words, based on existing research into blue light from the sun, blue light from screens is dismissible compared to even brief exposure to sunlight. Needless to say, the controversy surrounding Valkyrae’s RFLCT partnership is unlikely to dissipate.
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Source: Washington Post
