MattSavinar.netThe Big Pharma Sunscreen Coverup
By Matt Savinar, posted 07/29/2008
Counterpunch recently ran an article entitled "John McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up." To me, the most interesting part(s) of the article were not the parts about McCain but the parts about corporate disinformation regarding sunscreen. Particularly relevant was that sunscreen blocks out the "good" radiation from the sun but lets in the "bad". Melanoma is linked to UVA-A but it's UVA-B that causes you to become burned. Most sunscreens block out the UVA-B but let in the UVA-A:
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McCain's cherished SPF-30 rating is meaningless when it comes to melanoma. The SPF rating scale applies only to ultraviolet-B radiation (290 to 320 nanometers along the sun's spectrum) which causes red sunburn and is a major contributor to the more easily curable basal and squamous cell skin cancers. The consensus of biomedical research and opinion is that melanoma is strongly related to exposure to ultraviolet radiation, type A (UVA), the long solar waves (320 to 400 nanometers along the sun's spectrum) that travel beneath the skin's surface to damage melanocytes, the pigment making cells. In other words, a SPF for melanoma would have to be: SPF=0. Source
In other words, at the end of a day out in the sun with sunscreen on, you may have avoided a burn even as tremendous damage was done to your skin. But you have no idea so much damage was done as you didn't get burned!
At the same time, the sunscreen blocked out most of the Vitamin-D you would have gotten from the UVA-B rays had you not slopped the stuff on. Vitamin-D defiency has been linked with a wide range of diseases including depression, chronic pain, and various forms of cancer. Source#1 Source #2 Source#3
To make matters worse, a lot of commercially available sunscreens are loaded with hormone-disrupting synthetic ingredients, a significant portion of which substances are absorbed through the skin into the body. Source#1 Source #2 So you get three conditions - cancer, infertility & hormonal disruption, and depression - all from one product. Talk about a win-win for the corporate pharmaceutical industry!
If you're looking for a good sunscreen, you might want to check out the natural brand sold by Dr. Mercola over at his online store. That's the only one I trust although I'm sure there are others out there that are good.
For more information:
The essential truth about sunscreen was first brought to light by epidemiologists Frank and Cedric Garland in 1990 after their soon-to-be-published work was profiled in a New York Times article (Angier 1990). The two brothers investigated the use of sunscreen on military populations and concluded that "sunscreens give you a false sense of security," because they did not sufficiently block out UVA rays (Angier 1990; Garland et al. 1992; Segrave 2005).
In other words when a mom lathers her son up with a generic SPF-30 sunscreen for mid-day soccer game, she might feel comforted that he can stay out on the sun-drenched field longer because of his protection. While he is receiving some protection from UVB radiation, more than likely he's receiving a massive dose of UVA radiation with virtually no protection. Further, the lack of a sunburn from the sunscreen will reinforce this illusion of safety, resulting in longer exposure times. Source
A bit further down in the article:
