Beach Bummer (sunscreens and skin cancer) (1993)

With the recent front-page discussion of a sunburn calculator under various latitude/weather/sunscreen assumptions (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27517956), the long-running controversy over the net effects of sun & sunscreen has again visited HN.

I wanted to re-post this 2019 rundown of recent reasons to doubt the health benefits of sunscreens – https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure... – but it had already appeared too recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23086211).

So instead, check out this 28-year-old article from Mother Jones. While partially outdated – modern sunscreens do block UVA, too – it still has relevance documenting that very similar concerns have remained unrefuted for decades.

Now, in 2021, there's still inadequate safety testing of sunscreen active ingredients. There's still rising melanoma rates despite ubiquitous use of ever-"stronger" sunscreens, And there's still more correlation of overall longevity with sun exposure, rather than with sun avoidance or sunscreen usage.