A consumer advocacy group has a warning for parents who think they‘re protecting their family with sunscreen: You may be getting burned.
The Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based nonprofit, has released an investigation of nearly 1,000 brand-name sunscreens that says four out of five don‘t adequately protect consumers and may contain harmful chemicals.
The group says that some of the products of the nation‘s leading brands — including Coppertone, Neutrogena and Banana Boat — are the poorest performers.
The active ingredients of sunscreens are compounds that absorb, reflect or block ultraviolet light. Sunscreens are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration not as cosmetics but as over-the-counter drugs. They’re rated based on their Sun Protection Factor (SPF); the higher the SPF, the better the protection against sunburn.
The Environmental Working Group says that the SPF rating on a sun product is only part of what consumers need to know, and that the biggest problems with sunscreens are that they don‘t offer appropriate protection and that many contain unsafe ingredients.
A study in the April 2004 Journal of Chromatography found that there was significant penetration into the skin of all sunscreen agents they studied. And slathering a carcinogenic agent onto your skin may in fact be worse for your health than ingesting it, as it goes straight into your blood stream.
By following experts’ recommendations to apply generous amounts of sunscreen every few hours to prevent skin cancer, you are likely absorbing a fair amount.
Making matters worse, scientists are not even sure whether sunscreen prevents against melanoma in the first place. They’ve suggested that sunscreen may prevent sunburn, but may fail to actually protect against cancer because most sunscreens only screen out UVB, which makes vitamin D, not the UVA that causes most of the damage.
Some studies have even found a link between melanoma and the use of commercial sunscreen! Additionally, potentially harmful chemicals such as dioxybenzone and oxybenzone are some of the most powerful free radical generators known to man. And yet other studies have linked specific chemical UV filters with the transsexualization of male fish and coral reef degradation.
In light of that, I believe it’s imperative to do your homework, and to ONLY use a natural sunscreen with safe, non-toxic ingredients, so as to not add to your toxic load, and perhaps still not be protected from damaging UVA.
You can purchase Natural Sunscreen at our office next time you visit.