The first cases of ROP were found in 1940 in Boston, and from then on ROP became epidemic in the U.S. but nowhere else. After World War 2, when fluorescent lamps became available in other developed countries, the same parallel between the introduction of those lamps and the start of the ROP epidemic repeated itself. Fluorescent lamps of all types emit a high proportion of their energy at the blue-violet wavelength of 435.8 nanometer, right in the middle of the greatest "blue-light-hazard" measured by Industrial Safety researchers. Adult eyes filter out much of this hazard because they become yellow with age, but the eyes of premature babies are still fully transparent to blue and shorter wavelengths. The damage-weighted retinal irradiance on the retina ofa a preemie reaches in just a few minutes the overdose which the U.S. Industrial Safety Guidelines have established as the danger limit for adult industrial workers during an eight-hour shift. This form of blinding is enhanced by oxygen but not caused by it. Oxygen breathing help had been given to preemies for many decades routinely and generously before 1940 without ever causing any eye damage, and retrospective studies of older blind people confirmed this. The logical solution for ending the ROP epidemic is to replace fluorescent lamps for intensive care nurseries, or else to filter out the blue-violet component of their light. For a detailed documentation of the above, see retinopathyofprematurity.org/...indinglights01.htm and http://retinopathyofprematurity.org/01summary.htm. It is time to end this avoidable iatrogenic eye damage which is a major cause of childhood blindness around the world.