Evidence and ideology as a rationale for light-therapy in Russia: from the Soviet Union to the present day.

Light therapy is still used to treat a number of common diseases in Russia. The practice is firmly anchored in history: Soviet clinical practice was divorced from the emerging field of evidence-based medicine. Medical researchers were cut off from international medical research and scientific literature, with much Soviet scientific activity based on a particular socialist ideology. In this study, the use of light therapy serves as a case study to explore tensions between international evidence-based medicine and practices developed in isolation under the Soviet Union, the legacy of which is to the detriment of many patients today. We used four different search methods to uncover scientific and grey literature, both historical and contemporary. We assessed the changing frequency of publications over time and contrasted the volume of literature on light therapy with more orthodox treatments such as statins and painkillers. Our search found an increasing number and comparatively large body of scientific publications on light therapy in the Russian language, and many publications emanating from prestigious Russian institutions. Combined with our analysis of the historical literature and our appraisal of 22 full text articles, this leads us to suggest that light therapy entered mainstream Soviet medical practice before the Stalinist period and still occupies an important position in contemporary Russian clinical practice. We propose that this outdated treatment survives in Russia in part due to the political, economic and social forces that helped to popularize it during Soviet times, and by the seeming justification offered by poorly executed studies

Focusing of hard synchrotron radiation by a refracting glassy carbon lens

The first experimental study of focusing synchrotron radiation by a parabolic planar glassy-carbon lens is presented. The lens consists of four biconcave single lenses with a curvature radius of 0.2 mm and a relief height comparable with the lens aperture (similar to1 mm). One lens gives rise to the formation of a linear focus with a length comparable with the height of a parabolic profile. The use of two lenses in the cross geometry provides the formation of a pointlike focus. The experiment was performed with the use of synchrotron radiation from the bending magnet BM-5 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. The monochromated synchrotron radiation with an energy of 12.2 keV was focused at a distance of 19 m from the lens. The causes that gave rise to focus broadening in comparison with the focus following from the theory of an ideal lens are discussed