I knew a chap who repaired small timepieces most of his life and, in his 60's was nearly blind. No one suggested that books and precision repair are risky to one's vision. That's not the point. What happens when people read books, repair watches, or sit at VDT's depends on the context in which they do it. When a human being is maimed at work, it is a complex social phenomenon.
Technology is a tool.
The point about occupational visual damage connected to employers' workplace practices regarding VDT's concerns the economics of industries that use computers. The answer to this question has varied at different places and times, but very often the answers have been sad ones. Cooper is certainly correct that proper epidemiology is required with regard to complaints of eye damage resulting from jobs involving VDT use. This Manichean sort of approach to debates about workplace organization is not going to help in hearing the complaints of the maimed or in making offices and factories into human places to work. The Blue Cube, a top secret computer facility at Onizuka Air Force Base, just off Highway 101 and Mathilda Avenue, controls satellites transmitting the nation's most vital military and intelligence secrets.