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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

#151
post #49
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?

Amazon at this point is AliExpress with a huge price Markup for like half of their products. If you wouldn't put on something straight from China you shouldn't be trusting Amazon.

There is no real control within Amazon

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

#152
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What specific advances have been made in better detection and/or screening? Do we use better technology for this? If there was some sudden advancement then I'd assume we'd see a sudden jump in the graph. Rather, we see an incredibly smooth and steady increase. Furthermore, the graph is split between male and female and there's very few, if any, little increases that are synchronized across these categories. If techno…

> What specific advances have been made in better detection and/or screening? Do we use better technology for this?

The technology[1] and methodology used in detection has advanced significantly and repeatedly.

> If there was some sudden advancement then I'd assume we'd see a sudden jump in the graph. Rather, we see an incredibly smooth and steady increase.

You're ignoring the time it takes for technology to be adopted and implemented. No business, medical or otherwise, blindly purchases every piece of technology the moment it's made available on the market. In medicine, that process can actually be so slow that by the time a specific product reaches mass adoption, the current technology or methodology or medical understanding has already progressed, starting a new cycle of adoption. And that's all still ignoring the financial costs, which are often a barrier for smaller practices.

> Furthermore, the graph is split between male and female and there's very few, if any, little increases that are synchronized across these categories. If technology was a factor I'd assume we'd see increases in both

You're ignoring many factors here, most notably that women visit the doctor more often[2], spend more time per visit and more willingly express concerns[3], and increasingly so as care for women has become more accessible and less stigmatized[4]. Also, the graph is actually extremely synchronized between men and women, so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5624041/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15130263/

[3] https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2019/09/04/cleveland-cl...

[4] https://swhr.org/about/history/timeline/

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

#153
post #11

In the article it briefly mentions L’Oreal. They have a patent on another set of filters mexoryl and mexoryl xl, both are great and allowed by the FDA. You can buy it with their La Roche Posay brand.

I'd avoid everything L'Oreal like the plague.

Why?

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

#154
I am surprised about so much cancer and so little environment talk.

The reason I don't wear sunscreen and have spent hours looking at ingredients just to buy none is that I don't want to pollute our waters.

After tourist season there is a oily film swimming on our Alp lakes. People are literally walking hours enjoying the nature just to pollute the source of all that.

These lakes aren't that big. And their fresh water source is very limited in the summer months. No idea how the animals react tho, not sure if anyone specifically looked at good visited mountain lakes

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

#156

So 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…

There are some counter examples, like Thalidomide, and in a field where regulators (used to) trust each other and just accept what other countries' regulators said, aviation, the 737 Max (which nobody tested properly because the FAA didn't do their job and let Boeing self-certify, meanwhile EASA and other air regulators accepted the FAA's stamp of approval, not knowing it wasn't worth anything).

Also, different regulators have different thresholds - for instance many things that pass in the US food-wise wouldn't in the EU - be it chlorinated chickens, "false"/misleading labels, etc., and vice versa in some hilarious cases like Kinder Surprise (banned in the US because non-edibles inside food aren't acceptable to the FDA, meanwhile in the EU people just... teach their kids that you open it to get the toy, and eat the rest).

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

#158
post #44
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.

In addition to choosing the toothpaste, it’s important to use the right brushing technique and schedule, which is critical since toothpaste does the bulk of the work after the physical process of brushing is done: don’t rinse with water (just spit instead) and arrange brushing so that you don’t eat or drink afterwards.

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

#159
post #154

I am surprised about so much cancer and so little environment talk. The reason I don't wear sunscreen and have spent hours looking at ingredients just to buy none is that I don't want to pollute our waters. After tourist season there is a oily film swimming on our Alp lakes. People are literally walking hours enjoying the nature just to pollute the source of all that. These lakes aren't that big. And their fresh wate…

I haven't really looked too much into this one in particular, but do you know how zinc oxide sunblock fares environmentally?

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

#160
post #48
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

My understanding was that this was primarily due to the CDC not the FDA. The test the CDC developed was defective yet they mandated it.
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