Remember the outrage last year when some sunscreen was found to have few PPM of benzene?
The outrage from that FUD and people stopping use of sunscreen altogether likely caused more damage than benzene itself.
The outrage from that FUD and people stopping use of sunscreen altogether likely caused more damage than benzene itself.
Combine that with the fact that sunscreen has not been shown to cause any population wide reduction in skin cancer prevalence and endemic vitamin D deficiency. I think that people have a right to be mad?
And so is the sunburn risk, you can burn in 10 minutes here, but repeated sunburn increases melanoma risk.
Car paint fades fast and everything plastic or fabric gets destroyed by UV in a year or so.
As a ginger, the south sun is my mortal enemy, and I always struggled with sunscreen in the eyes when I got a sweat on hunting or tramping. And of course, all that sunscreen came from somewhere, so I ended up with sweat rivulet shaped sunburn on my forehead.
After trying all the brands I now swear by the Neutrogena 50+ ultra sheer spray on, only one I've found that stays on my forehead and out of my eyes, no matter how hot the day or steep the ridge.
I keep my can of it hidden away lest any of my kids decide to use it instead of the regular lotion because they like the spraying aspect.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2011/07/don-t-spray...
And I don't want my kids using it at all, it's for my specific purposes, and it's expensive! ;)
Edit I see the "spray it in your hand" approach is what the article you linked suggests. Glad I've adopted harm-minimalising approaches already :D
Have you accounted for all variables? The moral hazard where people stay out in the sun longer when they're wearing sunscreen, the fact that testing shows there are manufacturers with poor quality control leading to significant differences between claimed SPF and actual SPF, have there been any changes in patterns of time spent outdoors over the years, and how about the fact that different cohorts have different rates and trends?
We know that aging increases the risk of cancer, we also know that repeated instances of UV skin damage make skin cancer more likely.
So, have a look at this graph (Figure 2).
https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/occurrence-of-melanoma
The rates in the 25-44 cohort, who grew up when health initiatives about "being sun smart" were introduced to school curricula and promoted in the media are lower and trending slowly downwards.
Whereas the rates for boomers with a lifetime of accumulated UV damage are trending upwards as aging leaves them vulnerable to cancer if all kind.
Endemic vitamin D deficiency is going to need a citation, I think. In my country at least, it's only been noted in children who have very high melanin already, and then dress in our local "tough gangsta" style with baseball caps and hoodies with the hood pulled up over the cap, thus drastically reducing the area of skin exposed.
Here's the chain of events: young patient gets bad sunburn, sees doctor. Doctor sympathizes and warns patient of dire consequences of not using sunblock 100% of the time. Patient agrees and mostly uses sunblock for several decades, forgets a few times and gets more sunburns. In fact, patient is way more likely to be exposed to powerful sunlight because of the invincibility conferred by sunblock.
Patient gets cancer from substances in sunblock, and feels terribly guilty for not using it because a few sunburns must have given her skin cancer.
> facial skin cancers aren't gendered?
So that also means sunscreen doesn't work either?
It’s like the vaccine situation. Are vaccines bad for you? Probably a little bit, some of the time. But boy! The horrors of those diseases the vaccines prevent! You do not have to look quite so hard. In some places infant mortality was 30%. Nowadays, 1 in 3 parents are not left grieving before their child reaches 1 and so we forget why we vaccinate our children.