More effective sunscreen ingredients are available abroad, but not in the U.S.: Shots

In Europe, sunscreen is often made with ingredients that better protect against UVA rays.

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Ianna Kunica/Getty Images

In Europe, sunscreen is often made with ingredients that better protect against UVA rays.

Ianna Kunica/Getty Images

When dermatologist Adewole “Ade” Adamson saw people spraying sunscreen like cologne at the pool where he lives in Austin, Texas, he wanted to step in. “My wife says I shouldn’t,” he said, “even though most people rarely use enough sunscreen.”

The question isn’t just whether people are using enough sunscreen, but also what ingredients are in it.

In countries such as Japan, South Korea, and France, sunscreens include newer chemical filters, some of which have been shown to provide broader UV protection than those used in the United States

The FDA’s ability to approve such ingredients is limited by a 1938 U.S. law that requires sunscreens to be tested on animals and classified as drugs, rather than as such in many parts of the world. cosmetic.

As a result, Americans are unlikely to buy other sunscreens — which better block UVA rays that can cause skin cancer and wrinkles — in time for this summer or even next summer.

Sunscreen makers say U.S. approval standards are unfair because companies including BASF and L’Oréal, which make new sunscreen chemicals, submitted safety data to EU authorities about 20 years ago.

Steven Goldberg, a retired BASF vice president, said the company was wary of the FDA process because of the cost and because they were concerned that additional animal testing could trigger a consumer backlash in the European Union, which bans products including sunscreens. Cosmetics included are tested on animals.

The companies asked Congress to change testing requirements before taking steps to enter the U.S. market.

Last summer, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said it was a rare example of bipartisanship. Thanks to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., urges the FDA to expedite approval of new, more effective sunscreen ingredients. Now the House is awaiting a bipartisan bill that would require the FDA to allow non-animal testing.

“This goes back to sunscreen being classified as an over-the-counter drug,” said Karl DeRuys, senior manager at Swiss sunscreen chemical maker DSM Firmenich. “It’s really about giving American consumers what the rest of the world has. People aren’t dying from using sunscreen. They’re dying from melanoma.”

Is sunscreen safer?Misinformation in the sunscreen debate

In the United States, at least two people die from skin cancer every hour. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with 6.1 million adults treated for basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in the United States, with approximately 300,000 cases diagnosed each year, but it is far more lethal.

Although the success rate of skin cancer treatment is very high, one in five Americans will develop skin cancer by the age of 70. One study found that the annual cost of treating skin cancer in the United States more than doubled from 2002 to 2011, while the average annual cost of all other cancers increased by only 25 percent.

Unlike many other cancers, most forms of skin cancer are largely preventable by using sunscreen and taking other preventive measures.

But the sunscreen debate has been rife with misinformation, with some questioning the safety and derision of common U.S. sunscreen ingredients like avobenzone, homosalate, octyl salicylate and octocryline These ingredients are “chemical” sunscreens.

These sunscreen opponents prefer “physical” or “mineral” sunscreens, such as zinc oxide, even though all sunscreen ingredients are chemicals.

“This is an artificial classification,” said E. Dennis Bashaw, a retired FDA official who heads the agency’s clinical pharmacology division that studies sunscreens.

Still, the concern is partly caused by the FDA itself, which published a study saying trace amounts of some sunscreen ingredients were found in human blood. When the FDA said in 2019 and again two years later that more research was needed on older sunscreen ingredients to determine whether they were safe, sunscreen opponents looked to Here comes an opportunity.

“That’s why we have extremist groups and ill-informed people who believe that anything that pierces the skin is the end of the world,” Shas said. “Anything you put on your skin or eat into your skin is going to be absorbed.”

Ingredients that more effectively block UVA rays

Adamson, an Austin dermatologist, said some of the sunscreen ingredients available in the U.S. have been used for 30 years and there is no population-level evidence that they cause harm to anyone.

“To me, the issue is not the safety of the sunscreens we have,” he said. “Some chemical sunscreens are not broad-spectrum enough, which means they also do not block UVA. FDA allowing new ingredients could alleviate this problem.”

On the electromagnetic spectrum, ultraviolet radiation lies between X-rays and visible light. Most of the ultraviolet rays that people are exposed to are UVA rays, which can penetrate the middle layer of the skin and cause up to 90% of skin aging. There are also a small amount of UVB rays that can cause sunburn.

The sun protection factor (SPF) rating on US sunscreen bottles only indicates the sunscreen’s ability to block UVB rays. Although U.S. sunscreens labeled “broad spectrum” are theoretically supposed to block UVA rays, some studies show they don’t meet the EU’s higher UVA blocking standards.

“It appears that many of the new chemicals have better safety profiles in addition to better UVA protection,” said David Andrews, deputy director of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit group that studies ingredients in consumer products. “We have asked the FDA to consider allowing admission to market.”

The FDA defended its review process and called for testing of sunscreens sold in U.S. stores to ensure the safety of products used by many people every day, not just a few times a year at the beach.

“Today, many Americans rely on sunscreen as a key part of their skin cancer prevention strategies, which provides satisfactory evidence that these products are safe,” FDA spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones wrote in an email. and effectiveness are critical to public health.

Approval Pathway for an Overseas Ingredient: Bemotrigine

Druis’s company, DSM Firmenich, is currently the only company seeking approval in the U.S. for a new over-the-counter sunscreen ingredient. The company has been trying to get approval for bemotrizine for the past 20 years, a process D’Ruiz said has cost $18 million, and despite attempts by Congress in 2014 and 2020 to expedite applications for the new UV filter, progress has been slow On and off.

Bemotrizinol is a basic ingredient in almost all European and Asian sunscreens, including those from Korean brand Beauty of Joseon and Japanese brand Bioré.

D’Ruiz said bemotrizinol could receive FDA approval by the end of 2025. .

Amid the debate between Congress and the FDA, many Americans have begun importing their own sunscreens from Asia or Europe, despite the risk of counterfeit products.

“The sunscreen issue has made people realize that if you go too slow, it’s not safe,” said Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at George Mason University. “The FDA is just too slow. . They’ve actually been looking at this issue for 40 years and they still haven’t done it.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues as one of the agency’s core operating programs Cave.