Healing Connections

A non-profit group in the US claims that most sunscreens either don’t work or are hazardous to health, but the sunscreen industry rejects the charge. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) said their investigation of nearly 1,000 brand-name sunscreens showed that 4 out of 5 of them either don’t adequately protect against damaging UV radiation or contain potentially hazardous chemicals.

Leading brands like Coppertone, Banana Boat and Neutrogena were among the worst offenders, claimed the EWG in their report, “Sunscreen Summary - What Works and What’s Safe”, published on their website yesterday, 2nd July.

The sunscreen market is growing, with more Americans than ever using products to protect themselves from sun damage and skin cancer. Consumers tend to choose products with a high Sun Protection Factor (SPF), are waterproof and claim to offer “broad spectrum” protection, wrote the authors. However, few of the claims on the bottle were met.

The EWG researchers investigated 952 name-brand sunscreens, and found only 143 products that offered very good sun protection using ingredients that posed minimum health risks. They based their assessment on “a detailed review of hundreds of scientific studies, industry models of sunscreen efficacy, and toxicity and regulatory information housed in nearly 60 government, academic, and industry databases”.

They found that none of the market leader Coppertone’s 41 sunscreens met EWG’s criteria for safety and effectiveness, and only 1 out of 103 of Banana Boat and Neutrogena products, the second and third largest manufacturers, are on EWG’s recommended list.