Great Grandma's sunscreen
It was called common sense coverage.
Gardeners, golfers, sunbathers and tanning salonistas need to know: Skin cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in the United States and accounts for about 2% of all cancer deaths. In 2005, about 59,580 individuals in the United States were expected to develop melanoma and approximately 7,770 (62,000 and 7,900 in 2006) were expected to die of it. (JAMA and Proc Natl Acad Sci USA) Melanomas are often resistant to radiation therapy and to many chemotherapeutic agents. That's a huge price to pay for being fashionable.
The next time you hear reports of how many soldiers have died since 2003 in Iraq, ask yourself about these preventable deaths. Twice as many in 1/4 the time.
Update: In Tara Parker Pope's column (WSJ, June 5) she reports that a white cotton t-shirt is almost no protection, and even less if wet. A green t-shirt offers 50% more skin protection than white, but even that is only an SPF of 10. You can buy clothing treated with sun block. Rit Sun Guard is a laundry additive which increases the UPF rating to 30 and lasts for 20 washes.
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1 comment:
I hear radio commercials, public service announcement type things here in Florida all the time, telling us that over 80% of all skin cancers happen from the neck up, and then preaching the value of sunscreens and UV glasses and whatnot.
We help support some missionaries in Haiti, and the man, Bobby Burnette was once given 6 months to live due to skin cancer. That was many years ago, and he's still at it down there, but wears long sleeves, long pants, and a big straw Panama style hat at all time, and puts sunscreen on his hands, wrists, neck and face.
Your statistics are quite sobering.
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