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Newer, better sunscreens have not been approved by the FDA
- throwaway81523 4y agoDamn. If we can't get that two million sunblock, we're all gonna have a real bad day.
- rootsudo 4y agoThere 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.
- safeimp 4y agoI'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?
- elbigbad 4y agoI really don’t think you’re being paranoid at all. We’ve seen countless times that even well meaning sellers who are ethical get their products mixed with unethical sellers at the Amazon warehouses. I don’t buy anything I put on or in my body, or that sits close against my body, from Amazon. Aside from that no memory cards or things like power bricks that plug into my expensive laptops.
- copperx 4y ago> Am I being unreasonably paranoid? No. I treat anything I buy on Amazon as a counterfeit until I can prove that it is not. Sometimes it takes a few days of research per product, intensive physical inspection, and contacting the manufacturer to check lot/serial numbers. I'd love to delegate this onerous task. Perhaps it's a viable startup idea?
- herbst 4y agoAmazon 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
- insickness 4y agoTL;DR: The FDA hasn't yet approved some ingredients used in other countries.
- SnowHill9902 4y agoHow often do people go to the dermatologist to have their moles checked?
- SoftTalker 4y agoConsidering most are booked 12-18 months out, if they are even accepting new patients, probably not a lot.
- happyopossum 4y ago> 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.
- WillPostForFood 4y agoConsidering most are booked 12-18 months out I'm pretty annoyed about how far out I have to book doctors these days, but forgive me if I doubt the 12-18 months number. I recently booked a dermatologist checkup and it was four weeks. Maybe if you are only willing to take one specific Doctor. What city are you in?
- moneywoes 4y agoHappened to me in canada they ended up cancelling the appointment so the wait time was reset
- partiallypro 4y agoI was able to get into a dermatologist in just a few days, I'm in the US.
- MattGaiser 4y agoI didn’t book, but was told yesterday I could have an appointment beginning of August to have moles inspected.
- 4y ago
- TheAceOfHearts 4y agoSo 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.
- ska 4y agoSometimes 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).
- cplusplusfellow 4y ago> but I'm denied the opportunity to do so. regulatory capture is the phrase that comes to mind.
- BurningFrog 4y agoThe fact that the regulatory agencies in different countries consistently come to different decisions is a good indicator that their decisions are not science based. Because science is the same in different jurisdictions. The common explanation is the great asymmetry in bad press if an agency kills 1000 people by approving something dangerous vs if it kills 1000 people by not approving something beneficial.
- skybrian 4y agoYou're making a universalist assumption (all people are the same). But people are different in different countries, both genetically and culturally. They have different activities, diets, sun exposure, diseases, and so on, on average. And all drugs have benefits and side effects. So it's not out of the question that some drugs are more worthwhile for some populations than others, and regulators made different decisions for good reasons. It's going to depend on the specifics. So you can't make a generic argument as a shortcut to show that something must be wrong. That said, there's more life than averages. I think it would be great to allow people to buy drugs that were approved in a different country.
- majormajor 4y ago> 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/ 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).
- ntoskrnl 4y agoYou'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.
- jkubicek 4y agoFor those that are curious, here's[1] a mildly deep dive into the history of Novamin sales in the US. [1]: https://medium.com/@ravenstine/the-curious-history-of-novamin-toothpaste-620c6bef8881 https://medium.com/@ravenstine/the-curious-history-of-novami...
- dang 4y agoDiscussed here: The curious history of NovaMin toothpaste (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644350 - March 2021 (37 comments)
- rexf 4y agoThis is no longer the case. I read the link jkubicek posted and it mentions you can get it on amazon. Sensodyne repair & protect with novamin (pack of 6): https://www.amazon.com/Sensodyne-repair-protect-novamin-pack/dp/B00RZ2OB5Q https://www.amazon.com/Sensodyne-repair-protect-novamin-pack...
- lern_too_spel 4y agoThat's a store in India selling what they were able to purchase in India. Sensodyne doesn't sell it to retailers in the US.
- abduhl 4y agoBioMin is supposedly an equivalent substance that is approved in the US. https://drcollins.com/products/biomin-restore-toothpaste https://drcollins.com/products/biomin-restore-toothpaste
- 4y ago
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoThalidomide still casts a huge shadow across the FDA: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/woman-who-stood-between-america-and-epidemic-birth-defects-180963165/ 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.
- happyopossum 4y ago> It is the founding myth It’s not a myth and not involved in the FDA’s founding, so that statement makes no sense.
- klodolph 4y ago> myth, n. a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people The word “myth” does not necessarily mean “untrue”.
- diffeomorphism 4y agoNo, it just means compound words sometimes mean something different than the sum of their parts. In particular a "founding myth" is neither a myth nor necessarily involved in the founding. Substitute "an important event in the history of" if you are confused.
- diiaann 4y agoIn 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.
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoI'd avoid everything L'Oreal like the plague.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y agoWhy?
- 2-718-281-828 4y agotoo many ingredients in general and specifically of questionable tolerability.
- jakub_g 4y ago*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 of items sold, it's the opposite.
- endgame 4y agoThe 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 https://twitter.com/random_eddie/status/1232075455295037440
- encryptluks2 4y ago
- wutbrodo 4y agoI'd posit that certain lobes were already shut off if you're unable to read a thread by the then-Commissioner of the FDA because it happens to be on Twitter. It's the 2020s, agency heads make official statements on Twitter all the time.
- encryptluks2 4y agoAnd so do QAnon followers.
- wutbrodo 4y agoThe thread we're talking about is the former: the head of the FDA announcing policy via his Twitter account. How is it remotely relevant that other Twitter accounts are nutty? If somebody shared a clip of the President making a policy announcement on TV, would you deem it false based on the fact that "Alex Jones uses the TV to get his message out too". Do you truly not understand how insane that is?
- pcmoney 4y ago
- scifibestfi 4y ago> 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 products, lip balms, makeup, and clothing. Sun care has its own aisle at big-box stores, and beauty companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been built from the ground up by offering only products that block ultraviolet rays. So we went from little to no sunscreen to ubiquity over a few decades, but over that time rates of skin cancer have increased per 100k. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK247164/figure/skincancer.f3/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK247164/figure/skincanc... Shouldn't rates have gone down? What explains this?
- moralestapia 4y agoI recall reading a recent study (too lazy to look it up, tbh) that showed a link between skin cancer and sunscreen use, so your numbers may somehow support that suspicion.
- NavinF 4y agoThat link proves that cancer causes sunscreen. See https://xkcd.com/925/ https://xkcd.com/925/
- tdeck 4y agoPerhaps because so many sunscreens contain benzene, a known carcinogen: https://www.valisure.com/valisure-newsroom/valisure-detects-benzene-in-sunscreen https://www.valisure.com/valisure-newsroom/valisure-detects-...
- _justinfunk 4y agoWhy is this being downvoted so heavily? Is this a known conspiracy theory? Does anyone have evidence to the contrary? Or a secondary source for the allegation?
- kornhole 4y agoHack your own sunscreen: zinc powder, coconut oil, olive oil. I bought a lifetime supply of zinc for $10. It is edible and free of toxic endocrine disrupters. Goal is not to block everything since you need vitamin D.
- refurb 4y agoZinc powder? You mean zinc oxide I hope?
- kornhole 4y agoYes of course.
- jms703 4y agoCare to share your recipe?
- kornhole 4y agoThe simplest recipe is what I mentioned, but some people use carrot seed oil or other more exotic oils that have natural SPF. I find mixing coconut and olive oil give it the ideal consistency with natural SPF all easily obtainable from any grocery store. The chelated zinc oxide powder is the only thing you probably need to mail order.
- elevaet 4y agoI'm going to try this, the prices on commercial zinc sunscreens are often exorbitant.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoThis is pretty popular with surfers in Central America. Zinc Oxide cream, like what you use for a baby's diaper rash, is WAY cheaper than sunscreen (Priced high for the tourists), and it's pretty much available at any pañalera (diaper store, if you can believe it, more like what you'd call a 'dollar store' up north with the other things they sell anyways - many small towns have one). It just makes you look like a ghost for the first hour or two and gets on any fabric clothing in a way that's hard to wash out. The other thing that we do is just make sure we get to the beach at ridiculously early hours like 4-5am even before the sun comes up to go surfing so we don't burn ourselves to shit as well as to avoid tourists.
- vehemenz 4y agoAmazon blocks "bemotrizinol" from its search. Tsk tsk. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aamazon.com+%22bemotrizinol%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aamazon.com+%22bemotri...
- ltbarcly3 4y agoebay: 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.
- dmix 4y agoapparently the keyword to look for is 'Tinosorb', that's what the european beauty products list bemotrizinol as (from my brief research)
- pkulak 4y agoJust search for “watery essence”.
- anonu 4y ago
- happyopossum 4y agoThat’s not how the Supreme Court works. It’s a judicial body put in place to correct legislative issues. You have to have standing and a lawsuit to get in front of them, they can’t just choose to ‘get involved’.
- kayson 4y agoHow do these new filter chemicals compare in terms of safety for coral reefs? When I went to Hawaii there were signs everywhere about only using mineral-based sunscreen (i.e. physical filters). https://savethereef.org/about-reef-save-sunscreen.html https://savethereef.org/about-reef-save-sunscreen.html
- adventured 4y ago> 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.
- galangalalgol 4y agoAgreed, by 86 we wore it anytime we'd be outside more than a half hour. I remember not all the parents at the public pool made their kids put it on, but a lot did.
- WalterBright 4y agoI used to wear sunscreen daily. Now I just wear a hat with a brim.
- carabiner 4y agoWhat are they, and where can I buy them in the US?
- pgt 4y agoAnecdote: As a pale-skinned male, I used to lather myself in sunscreen. Then I cut out seed oils. I no longer burn. Totally stopped using sunscreen.
- MattGaiser 4y agoWhy did you cut seed oils in the first place?
- mensetmanusman 4y agoVitamin D deficiency is far riskier for sedatory indoor people then skin cancer is. I wouldn’t be surprised if we look back at this time and laugh at how we were blocking too many UV rays.
- laichzeit0 4y agoIt’s amazing how rejuvenated one feels after just a few minutes in the sun. Like 10 minutes. The sun is not going to kill you from a few minutes exposure to it.
- pkulak 4y agoOne of those seems far more dangerous. And not treatable with I single pill.
- rsanek 4y agotreating the symptom of vitamin d deficiency by taking a hormone orally isn't dealing with the root of the problem.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
- ReptileMan 4y agoI still feel that the best sunscreen is to just be in the shade with cold beer while sun is at it's harshest.
- herbst 4y agoI 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
- heavyset_go 4y agoI haven't really looked too much into this one in particular, but do you know how zinc oxide sunblock fares environmentally?
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoTo follow this. Many natural hot springs that are open to the public have a straight up no sunscreen allowed rule. 3 hours into the high desert with no sunscreen and that is how it should be.
- kazinator 4y ago2 hour jet flight to destination, one hour drive into the desert in an off-road vehicle, followed by undoing the ecological damage by not wearing sunscreen!
- galleywest200 4y agoCouldn't you just put it on and not swim? As a redhead I wear sunscreen just pulling weeds in my yard, or going on a walk with my dog.
- kazinator 4y agoDid you mean "not swim, bathe or shower?" The stuff goes somewhere.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoIsn't vitamin D going to get mentioned? Has sunscreen growth coincided with plummeting levels of vitamin D?
- nootropicat 4y agoSunscreen is a scam. Sun is good for you unless you aren't able to tan. "Nonsmokers who avoided sun exposure had a life expectancy similar to smokers in the highest sun exposure group, indicating that avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor for death of a similar magnitude as smoking. Compared to the highest sun exposure group, life expectancy of avoiders of sun exposure was reduced by 0.6-2.1 years. " https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26992108/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26992108/
- cco 4y agoI suppose the FDA's opinion here doesn't matter anymore? Wild, layman postulation here, but I don't see any meaningful difference between the FDA and the EPA, if the EPA was executive overreach than I suppose the FDA is too and companies should feel relatively comfortable about using any chemical that they wish. I'd be curious to hear the inside of both meeting rooms, inside the FDA and inside chemical producers. Very curious what those meetings are like after last week.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]