T&T: Best sunscreen

[Dale Kern]

Jeff's effort to provide useable information is foiled by his source,
Environmental Working Group.  For almost 40 years I have been an R&D scientist
focused on biochemistry and immunology.  In my professional opinion, the
Environmental Working Group seeks to alarm with partial information and
disinformation to support their environmental agenda.  The more people they
alarm, the more money they receive to their lobby group.  By many they are
considered a radical group.

I DO NOT work for P&G, Neutrogena, Coppertone, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder or other
large retail skin care company

Sunscreens are regulated by the U.S. FDA as an Over-The-Counter drug (OTC).
They are drugs.  As such sunscreens must contain the active ingredients
specified by the FDA.  Currently those are listed in the FDA document called a
Tentative Final Monograph for sunscreens.  All manufacturers who place a claim
of SPF on their product MUST meet the requirement of the monograph.

I trust any sunscreen made by a major skin care company.  They have spent
hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to develop their products and
must meet FDA guidelines and tests.  I use Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch
SPF 45 (Neutrogena has 19 suncare products to choose from) or Coppertone Sport
(or Coppertone Nutrashield as an alternative).  Check out L'Oreal products,
Estee Lauder and others.  They will have good products as well.

My two earlier posts on this subject were rejected due to length.  Email off
line if you care to converse further or seek additional accurate information.

Dale
Promised Wind, Cat. 34
Utah
orionkometes at netzero.com

-----Original Message-----
From: trawlers-and-trawlering-bounces at lists.samurai.com
[mailto:trawlers-and-trawlering-bounces at lists.samurai.com] On Behalf Of
Jeffrey Siegel
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 9:53 PM
To: trawlers-and-trawlering at lists.samurai.com
Subject: Re: T&T: Best sunscreen

The topic of sunscreen seems like it should be simple.  Just put it on.
Especially for us boaters.  And it needs to be used every day if you
have any chance of exposure.

But the reality is that it is way more complex of an issue.  Sunscreens
aren't regulated and it's pretty hard to know if the product you're
using actually works.  In addition, it's a material that you're placing
on large areas of your skin for long periods of time.  Those materials
are getting absorbed into your system and accumulating in your body.
And guess what?  Some of the materials used in many of the common
sunscreens have questionable safety levels.  Some are considered toxic.

The Environmental Working Group did a huge study of more than 700
sunscreen products.  They found, amazingly, that 84% of the products
with an SPF of 15 or higher don't adequately protect you or contain
ingredients with safety concerns.  84% !!  I'll fully admit that we had
been using one of the less-than-healthy ones on our boat.  But not any
longer.

There's a small report all about it and a database of all of their
findings:
http://www.ewg.org/node/21719

You don't need to sign up for their newsletter in order to get to the
database.


==================================
Jeffrey Siegel
M/V aCappella
DeFever 53PH
W1ACA/WDB4350
Castine, Maine

www.activecaptain.com
The Interactive Cruising Guidebook






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