U.S. Sunscreens & The Failing of the FDA

I mentioned a few blog posts ago that the FDA sent out a sternly worded missive about sunscreen pills not being effective. And for once, the moribund agency that seems to allow a number of chemicals into U.S. food and water supplies spoke out against what basically amounts to snake oil. But don’t for a minute think that this agency is really looking to protect the American people. The FDA still allows a significant number of chemicals to be consumed by the unknowing U.S. public, chemicals that are banned in Europe, Australia, and even some that Russian and Chinese governments have banned – but not the United States.

Anyway, one of the chemicals that is commonly found in sunscreens available in the United States is called oxybenzone. If you live in one of the 50 states, go to your stash of sunscreens. I guarantee you that this ingredient will be found in nearly every one of those bottles. Ok, so what, you might be thinking… Well, this chemical is banned in Europe and has been for a while. And Hawaii just recently passed legislation to ban sunscreens that contain this ingredient.

The bill passed in Hawaii states that the reason for the ban is that oxybenzone kills the coral reefs that surround the islands as well as impacting the marina life. Now, the ban actually doesn’t go into effect until January 1, 2021. That’s not exactly an immediate “throw out your Coppertone” mandate. But it is a step in the right direction and will hopefully push the FDA in Washington to get their freaking act together and stop listening to the industry lobbyists who have successfully stalled any action to finalize updated sunscreen safety standards. By the way, those safety standards have not been updated in nearly 40 years. Even the marketing guidelines act of 2011 took 34 years of “study” and basically amounted to a “don’t say your stuff is sweat-proof or waterproof because it isn’t” and “you can only say broad spectrum if it protects against both UVA and UVB”. And even then, the manufacturers who had roughly a year to comply successfully argued that they needed more time and got a 6-month extension. And that was basically to just change their freaking labels! (BTW, I’ve worked on product packaging and I know damn well that this process would take maybe a few weeks on the label redesign and maybe another month or two on the production side… 18 months for a safety change but they can rebrand in 3?)

Anyway, last October the FDA finally issued a new draft of safety standards after a delay of nearly 30 years, but it still continues to delay finalizing them. You know as well as I do that the delay comes from the lobbying efforts of the manufacturers. And then the recent FDA statement about those sunscreen pills came with this sentence: The FDA is encouraging industry to conduct research on additional sunscreen active ingredients that’ll help us answer critical questions about their safety. I’m sorry, what? You’re encouraging them? You know how they’re doing that? The FDA issued a request to the manufacturers to tell the FDA how they should run Maximal Usage Trials for topically applied ingredients. Why don’t we let the fox run the henhouse? Seems like a great idea to me…You can read the FDA’s mealy-mouth statement in its entirety here. The ridiculousness comes after they (rightfully) castigate the snake oil – I mean sunscreen -pills.

Why am I riled up? Because I have been basically swimming in sunscreen that may not be safe. I am topically applying to my body chemicals that I thought would provide me a layer of protection against getting another diagnosis, another excision, another round of “let’s play a deal” with my health. Instead, I am relying on sunscreen ingredients that have not been checked for safety in just about 40 years! But surely my federal government, the people who I elect to make laws to keep me safe and provide a modicum of protection against the snake oil peddlers would uphold their bargain in return for my tax dollars, right? Well, no, not really…

And while Hawaii passed legislation to finally ban sunscreens that contain oxybenzone and octinoxate, they did it with the announcement that it is harming the coral and marine life. But what does that mean for humans? Stay tuned dear readers because I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time in the last month or so doing some research…