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Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

theatlantic.com

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Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#41

Post by hinkley »

akersten wrote: post #32
scifibestfi wrote: post #16

> At 36, I am just old enough to remember when sunscreen wasn’t a big deal. My mom, despite being among the palest people alive, does not remember bringing it on our earliest vacations, or hearing any mention of sun protection by our pediatrician. > Now SPF is ubiquitous. You can find it in lotions, sprays, gels, oils, powders, and implements that look like grade-school glue sticks, as well as infused into skin-care…

Better detection and screening for these cancers resulting in an apparently larger rate of incidence is an easy hypothesis to reach for.

Also cancer is often in line behind other things waiting to kill you. If you survive everything else, you die of cancer.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#42

Post by adventured »

> At 36, I am just old enough to remember when sunscreen wasn’t a big deal. My mom, despite being among the palest people alive, does not remember bringing it on our earliest vacations, or hearing any mention of sun protection by our pediatrician

I'm 40 and it was common when I was a child, on family trips to the beach or similar style vacations. Every family in my neighborhood functioned approximately the same when it came to sunscreen. It was common with other children at school, and among teachers, and so on. There was nothing special at all about the area where I grew up, a white lower middle to middle class area. It was very common knowledge by the late 1980s to wear sunscreen while at the beach. That's an exceptionally low quality set-up by the article's author.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#43

Post by happyopossum »

SoftTalker wrote: post #14
SnowHill9902 wrote: post #5

How often do people go to the dermatologist to have their moles checked?

Considering most are booked 12-18 months out, if they are even accepting new patients, probably not a lot.

> most are booked 12-18 months out

Err, I hate to sound trite, but citation please? I live in the Bay Area of California, and my wife gets her dermatologist appointments in an annoying but reasonable timeframe - nothing like 12-18 months. Not even 12-18 weeks.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#44

Post by monetus »

ntoskrnl wrote: post #8

You'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.

In case someone goes down this rabbit hole, Nanohydroxyapatite and fluoride seem to prevent caries best together, better than either alone.

Japanese apagard is what I use. Novamin has an analog of hydroxyapatite in it.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#45

Post by ltbarcly3 »

vehemenz wrote: post #26

Amazon blocks "bemotrizinol" from its search. Tsk tsk. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aamazon.com+%22bemotri...

ebay: when you want to buy something despite regulations against it. In california this is often necessary! Not only does it find lots of results, they will facilitate importing it from Australia for you.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#46

Post by adventured »

ntoskrnl wrote: post #8

You'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.

BioMin is every bit as good as Novamin. You are allowed to have comparable toothpaste in the US.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#47

Post by happyopossum »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #9

Thalidomide 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.

> It is the founding myth

It’s not a myth and not involved in the FDA’s founding, so that statement makes no sense.

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#48

Post by endgame »

jakub_g wrote: post #12

*in US. Honestly, I was expecting an article about some ingredients being harmful to coral reef hence disallowed, or similar. Instead, the issue is slow process of FDA. > The FDA hasn’t added a new active ingredient to its sunscreen monograph [...] in decades. Also, what makes this article interesting (a "man bites a dog" kind of story) is that the US is more strict than EU in this area; in 95% of cases for all kinds…

The same FDA which made it all-but-impossible to test for SARS-CoV-2 in early 2020? I'd believe it.

https://twitter.com/random_eddie/status/1232075455295037440

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#49

Post by safeimp »

rootsudo wrote: post #3

There 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…

I'm always dubious purchasing things like this via Amazon. I'll buy tech gear there or miscellaneous accessories but for something that I'm ingesting or applying to my skin I'm reluctant, especially with it falling into a gray area. Am I being unreasonably paranoid?

Re: Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA

#50

Post by icegreentea2 »

scifibestfi wrote: post #16

> At 36, I am just old enough to remember when sunscreen wasn’t a big deal. My mom, despite being among the palest people alive, does not remember bringing it on our earliest vacations, or hearing any mention of sun protection by our pediatrician. > Now SPF is ubiquitous. You can find it in lotions, sprays, gels, oils, powders, and implements that look like grade-school glue sticks, as well as infused into skin-care…

Reasonable question. There appears to be a shift in the relative incidence rates based on age since 2000 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle...).

Skin cancer rates were always weighted towards older (average age at detection is ~65), but at the same time skin cancers are one of the more common cancers found in young people. Since 2000 where appears to be a decrease in incidence of younger ages, and an increase of those at older ages.

EDIT: Just to add on, I don't know if this age shift effect accounts for everything, but I think it's interesting and relevant.

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