Of rescued reptiles (all species represented)that were blind, or going blind, they lived for a period of time (varying) in cages with UV bulbs. I can only guess that these animals spent time too close, or climbing on the bulbs frequently.
Beyond this I cannot verify what other harm it can do.
Like FR mentioned, any decent UV bulb has a health warning that says it must be kept a certain distance from your skin, and your animals, it also says that you should never look directly at the bulb because they can cause blindness.
Now, consider this, the bulbs also say that you must mount them from 6 inches to 30 inches from the animal. During actual UV testing these bulbs produced such low incidnece of UV rays that the farthest any read anything close to usable was 3-6 inches away (the dangerous area).
Its not that we dont use them, or havent, its that we have tried them, and so have millions of other keepers, they show no real benefit. In fact I tried comparing cages with beardies kept under normal household bulbs, blacklight bulbs, and UV bulbs. There was no difference between the common bathroom flourescent bulb and the best UV bulbs.
If you want to spend you money wisely avoid them, use good husbandry. If you have hundreds of extra bucks to burn try them for yourself. First things first, your husbandry must be good enough that you dont see any reason to have them first before you add them.
Being involved with the pet industry (voluntarily) from a wholesale purchasing point of view once I saw the real pricing of those bulbs, and got the sales pitch about increased profit making products, about convincing your retail customers that they must spend $20-$30 every 3-6 months to keep their reptiles healthy in the name of profit.
That business allowed me to get those bulbs for the same price as normal household bulbs if I wanted them.

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