Study: Many Suncreens Provide Poor Protection

CBS 2 New York NY, Tanya Rivero
Published June 18, 2007

Is your sunscreen burning you? An alarming new study finds that many of the sunscreens on the market, including some bestsellers, provide inadequate protection. Valetine Bureau enjoys sunbathing, but wouldn't dream of doing it without sunscreen. “I’ve seen the way that girls who get sun 24/7 look like, and they age incredibly quickly and I don't want that to happen to me,” said Bureau. And if she learned her sunscreen was essentially useless? “You'd feel duped, I mean you're trusting in these people for your safety,” said Bureau. Many will be outraged by a comprehensive new study finding that over 80 percent of the sunscreens on the market offer inadequate sun protection. Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group said they analyzed 800 products. “When we put all of the factors that we considered together, what would make a safe an effective sunscreen found that about one of every six products on the market looked like it would both work, protect you from the sun, and would be low in ingredients that you would be concerned about,” Houlihan said. “FDA has not set comprehensive sun screen safety standards in the U.S. They've been drafting these standards for 30 years. They are not mandatory yet and what we find instead, is that other countries now have better more effective products than we have in the U.S,” said Houlihan. “I think it is important that people be aware there isn't a lot of regulation out there. We really do need a better way of judging how products compare against one another,” said Dr. Michael Eidelman of St. Vincent's Medical Center. “We do see a tremendous amount of sun damage and skin cancers in the office even with all of the attention on skin we're still seeing high rates of skin cancer in our young population," Eidelman added. “There's nothing that's perfect, there's no single ingredient that can do it all, so it's a big balancing act." The study was limited to U.S. products, but the FDA has yet to approve some effective UVA filters available in Europe and Canada. The study found another problem with over half the sunscreens on the market is that they contain ingredients that actually break down in the sun, some in just a matter of minutes, leading to another finding. Lots of false claims, and any promises of all-day protection are simply not true. So what should you look for in a sunscreen? It’s not just the product that matters. “It's the way you apply it, making sure you're applying it frequently enough, making sure that your using enough of it on your skin, if it's too thin it's not going to work effectively,” said Eidelman.