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Even if sunscreen blocked UV-A completely, almost no one uses it in the way that grants real protection against sunburn. For sunscreen to live up to its hype, you have to slop it on real thick and reapply it every few hours. We're talking at least one full bottle per person per day at the beach. Meanwhile, the vast majority of sunscreen users apply a thin layer once or twice.
The only proven way to prevent melanoma is to cover up. Our forebears did so in the days before sunscreen. Clearly it worked because melanoma was so rare. It's also what people now do in Australia. White Australians come largely from light-skinned British/Irish stock. Queensland province, in northeastern Australia, has the highest melanoma rate in the world, but as the SCF proudly pointed out when it rebutted Berwick's study, melanoma rates there have started to flatten. What the SCF did not mention is that while the Queensland public health authorities began a big-budget PR campaign promoting sunscreen in 1981, they shifted the campaign's focus a few years ago to strongly encourage people to cover up and stay in the shade.
The Skin Cancer Foundation does acknowledge that sunscreen alone is not enough. You need to wear protective clothing (pricey new fabrics such as Solumbra apparently block both UV-A and UV-B, but a wide hat and long, lightweight summer clothing should suffice), and spend more time in the shade. If you're a beach lover, invest in a sun umbrella. But think twice before you slap on sunscreen. Some cement mixers destroy the roads we're told they build. And some products may contribute to the cancer we're told they prevent.
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The bottom line is this: it looks like no sunscreens are safe. According to our research, sunscreens give users a false sense of security in that, while they effectively prevent sunburn, they do nothing to prevent skin cancer or accelerated aging of the skin.
What's even worse is the fact that both chemical sunscreens (methoxycinnamate, padimate-o and the like) and physical sunblocks (titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) generate free radicals when exposed to sunlight, which then can attack the nuclei of your skin cells and cause mutations. That's right: they can cause skin cancer. Furthermore, sunscreen chemicals have been found to pass through the skin and mimic the effects of estrogen, which may disrupt the delicate balance of the body's natural hormones.
Titanium dioxide is now being used as a new treatment for window glass because it attacks and degrades anything that touches it, thereby helping to keep windows clean. You probably don't want to have anything attacking your skin!
Our recommendation: Loose-fitting clothing, big hats and shady trees.
