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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | Study: Many Sunscreens May Be Accelerating CancerUpdated: 11 days ago
Andrew Schneider
Senior Public Health Correspondent
AOL News WASHINGTON (May 24) -- Almost half of the 500 most popular sunscreen products may actually increase the speed at which malignant cells develop and spread skin cancer because they contain vitamin A or its derivatives, according to an evaluation of those products released today.
AOL News also has learned through documents and interviews that the Food and Drug Administration has known of the potential danger for as long as a decade without alerting the public, which the FDA denies.
The study was released with Memorial Day weekend approaching. Store shelves throughout the country are already crammed with tubes, jars, bottles and spray cans of sunscreen.
The white goop, creams and ointments might prevent sunburn. But don't count on them to keep the ultraviolet light from destroying your skin cells and causing tumors and lesions, according to researchers at Environmental Working Group.
In their annual report to consumers on sunscreen, they say that only 39 of the 500 products they examined were considered safe and effective to use.
The report cites these problems with bogus sun protection factor (SPF) numbers:
The use of the hormone-disrupting chemical oxybenzone, which penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream.
Overstated claims about performance.
The lack of needed regulations and oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.
But the most alarming disclosure in this year's report is the finding that vitamin A and its derivatives, retinol and retinyl palmitate, may speed up the cancer that sunscreen is used to prevent.
Environmental Working Group
A dangerous additive
The industry includes vitamin A in its sunscreen formulations because it is an anti-oxidant that slows skin aging.
But the EWG researchers found the initial findings of an FDA study of vitamin A's photocarcinogenic properties, meaning the possibility that it results in cancerous tumors when used on skin exposed to sunlight.
"In that yearlong study, tumors and lesions developed up to 21 percent faster in lab animals coated in a vitamin A-laced cream than animals treated with a vitamin-free cream," the report said.
The conclusion came from EWG's analysis of initial findings released last fall by the FDA and the National Toxicology Program, the federal government's principle evaluator of substances that raise public health concerns.
EWG's conclusions were subsequently scrutinized by outside toxicologists.
Based on the strength of the findings by FDA's own scientists, many in the public health community say they can't believe nor understand why the agency hasn't already notified the public of the possible danger.
"There was enough evidence 10 years ago for FDA to caution consumers against the use of vitamin A in sunscreens," Jane Houlihan, EWG's senior vice president for research, told AOL News.
"FDA launched this one-year study, completed their research and now 10 years later, they say nothing about it, just silence."
On Friday, the FDA said the allegations are not true.
"We have thoroughly checked and are not aware of any studies," an FDA spokesperson told AOL News. She said she checked with bosses throughout the agency and found no one who knew of the vitamin A sunscreen research being done by or on behalf of the agency.
But documents from the FDA and the National Toxicology Program showed that the agency had done the research.
"Retinyl palmitate was selected by (FDA's) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition for photo-toxicity and photocarcinogenicity testing based on the increasingly widespread use of this compound in cosmetic retail products for use on sun-exposed skin," said an October 2000 report by the National Toxicology Program.
FDA's own website said the animal studies were done at its National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Ark. And it was scientists from the FDA center and National Toxicology Program who posted the study data last fall.
Full article may be found here:
http://www.aolnews.com/health/article/study-many-sunscreens-may-be-...
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Posts: 2361
| I am all for sunscreens of some type and try and protect my own skin and the skin of my light eyed daughter as much as possible, but this organization is somewhat centered on continuing to achieve funding, and crying wolf to help those funds appear, imo. They are constantly in a flit about something "for the good of us all", and burn a lot of money in their efforts to make mankind's lot better.<br /><br /> <strong>The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is the cauldron where some of the worst science and most creative smear campaigns are cooked up. A web of vested interests including both organic marketers and their public relations operatives reap the benefits of these deceptive advocacy campaigns.<br /><br />EWG executive director Kenneth Cook has told numerous media outlets — including The New York Times (February 24, 2002) — that he started the Environmental Working Group in 1993. However, published grant records from over a dozen big-money foundations show that EWG was raking in the big bucks as early as 1989. At that time, Cook was vice president of an environmental publishing house called the Center for Resource Economics/Island Press (CRE/IP).<br /><br />Island Press was originally founded in 1979 by Mellon banking heiress Catherine Conover; it was reorganized in 1984 as the Center for Resource Economics/Island Press, and placed under the leadership of Tides Foundation director Charles Savitt. Drummond Pike, who started the Tides Foundation in 1976, has also been on EWG’s board since the beginning, and is a long time director of CRE/IP as well (he’s currently its treasurer).<br /><br />Until 1993, Cook and EWG engaged in the questionable (but apparently legal) practice of using CRE/IP’s existing tax exemption as a cover to receive foundation money. In this way, EWG collected over $5 million before 1993, the year Cook claims the organization was founded. In 1993 Cook left CRE/IP and moved EWG under the protective umbrella of the Tides Foundation, an organization that specializes in lending its tax-exempt status to leftist startups that might not satisfy the Internal Revenue Service’s criteria on their own. When the Tides Foundation spun off the “Tides Center” in 1996, EWG was among a few hundred activist groups that were quietly shifted to the new entity. Catherine Conover, while still on CRE/IP’s board, is also among the biggest individual donors to the Tides Foundation/Center complex.
http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/113-environment...
sorry, rich text editor on this site has some programming glitches when I use it
Edited by firstsixfeet 6/4/2010 12:56 PM
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Location: The desert | AOL news....there is a great source. |
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Posts: 576
Location: Elk Grove Village, IL & Phillips, WI | It's been discussed: http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=58... |
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Location: Oregon | I ran across this article by accident last night and thought it was timely given the other recent discussion. Maybe some will enjoy reading it. I have no arguement about its content one way or another. Fish on!
Jed
Edited by RiverMan 6/4/2010 3:16 PM
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Location: Ogden, Ut | Call me old school, but I use whatever they give me for free at work. That way, when I get skin cancer I'll sue THEM for either inadequate or excessive protection...
Ain't it great not having to accept any individual responsibility? 
S. |
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | sorenson - 6/4/2010 5:47 PM
Call me old school, but I use whatever they give me for free at work. That way, when I get skin cancer I'll sue THEM for either inadequate or excessive protection...
Ain't it great not having to accept any individual responsibility?
S.
Good plan, I'm ordering a case on Monday. |
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Posts: 96
Location: Eau Claire | good plan indeed, send me a job with that case. |
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