Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
theatlantic.com
Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
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Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#2Damn. If we can't get that two million sunblock, we're all gonna have a real bad day.
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#3There is a small not so black market of distributors for these, notably Biore UV which is easily accessible on Amazon - as well as ebay and other ecomm channels.
I fly frequently to Japan, and always stock up on Biore UV, and lately with the USD to JPY, it makes more sense too stock up more. :)
Lots of items from amazon.co.jp also have free shipping to USA, it's nice.
If you can't enter Japan, but still feel the need (it sounds silly, but maybe on layover) you can fly through Haneda which has all shops accessible for transfers. Narita can too depending which terminal you fly in, ANA yes, JAL no.
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#4TL;DR: The FDA hasn't yet approved some ingredients used in other countries.
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#5How often do people go to the dermatologist to have their moles checked?
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#6So much for consumer choice and free markets. I wonder why there aren't more attempts at consolidating regulatory information across countries.
If some sunscreen or baby food is available in Europe I'd feel pretty comfortable using it, but I'm denied the opportunity to do so. It would be great if these kinds of items were made available for purchase with some sort of disclaimer. My guess is that in both the cases of sunscreen and baby food, regulations are in place in order to protect local national interests.
Something that I've always found a bit concerning is when there are major inconsistencies between global regulatory agencies. There's demographic differences to account for, but how is it possible to arrive at such drastically different conclusions? And if you arrive at drastically different conclusions, someone is probably going to be more correct while the other is going to be more wrong.
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#7> Dobos emphasized to me that she thinks the FDA’s strict regulation of sunscreen products is generally beneficial to the American public, but that the agency’s slow progress on new ingredients doesn’t match the urgency of skin cancer’s threat to public health.
This line is where this got interesting to me, as it's not hard to find examples of the US being lax with product/chemical safety compared to Europe in other areas, so I was skeptical of a case to be more rash in this area. So pairing it with the issue of skin cancer makes it more compelling. But they still gloss over chemical absorption in this article, which is a factor that seems like it could use more investigation per https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7759112/ (tldr: sunscreen -> less skin cancers seems well supported, but effect of chemicals in body is not understood).
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#8You're also not allowed to have the best toothpaste in the world. Toothpaste with Novamin can't be sold in the US. Thankfully the internet makes it easy to get the good stuff anyhow.
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#9Thalidomide still casts a huge shadow across the FDA: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/woman-who-stoo...
It is the founding myth. As such it is institutionally very conservative about approving stuff.
Now the question does become: what is the opportunity cost of that stance. How many people have died or had bad outcomes because medicine deemed safe in Europe was not approved by the FDA.
Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
#10So much for consumer choice and free markets. I wonder why there aren't more attempts at consolidating regulatory information across countries. If some sunscreen or baby food is available in Europe I'd feel pretty comfortable using it, but I'm denied the opportunity to do so. It would be great if these kinds of items were made available for purchase with some sort of disclaimer. My guess is that in both the cases of…
Sometimes the problem is more that the data is not really solid yet, so the risk/reward tradeoff is less obvious. Also the agencies may not be seeing the same data (in itself, a problem).