[stylist] off-topic, circadian cycles

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Peter,

I understand your hesitation, but others experience similar issues when
there is a lack of sunlight like my example with Alaska. So it stands to
reason that a blind person with no light perception would have a similar
experience, and so far, from what I understand, studies are suggesting
this.

However, I do agree that in order to truly conduct proper research and
find the correct diagnosis, they should simultaneously test for other
sleep problems.

No one is suggesting, though, that a disturbed sleep pattern equates to
blind people not functioning like "normal" people, especially since even
sighted people can have a like experience. Whereas the sex studies were
trying to prove blind people are biologically different.

Nonetheless (I think this is my word of the weak! LOL) we should
investigate studies like this to determine the value and accuracy before
jumping on band wagons. Don't discredit it, but don't rush in to support
it with no, to little, thought about it.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 16
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:31:32 -0500
From: "Peter Donahue" <pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] off-topic, circadian cycles
Message-ID: <006701cc7ebc$dddfb9c0$9e010b43 at yourfsyly0jtwn>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

Hello Chris and everyone,

I liken this rubbish to that of the scientists who believed that because
the 
blind could not see light our sexual patterns were irregular despite
over 
whelming evidence to the contrary. Their "Findings" were quoted in 
"Blindness: Is the Public Against Us" the 1975 banquet address delivered
by 
Dr. Jernigan.

    There was once a researcher who came to a past national convention 
seeking blind persons to participate in a study she was doing to prove
that 
sexual functioning in the blind was effected by the inability to see
light. 
She was not received very well and left that convention packing.

    I'm really furious about this so-called "Research" as I'm a Sleep
Apnea 
sufferer and probably had it since I was a child. As far as I know these

researchers never performed baseline sleep studies on their blind
subjects 
in order to rule out disorders such as sleep apnea for example before 
arriving at their voluminous conclusions that irregular sleep cycles in
the 
blind are due to poor or no melatonin production. Due to this fact this 
research is flawed and blind people suffer on account of it.

Peter Donahue