Just in time to drive parents into a panic for the rest of the summer, the New York Times has a big article about sunscreen:
Dr. [James] Spencer [a dermatologist in Florida] said that an S.P.F. 15 product screens about 94 percent of UVB rays while an S.P.F. 30 product screens 97 percent. Manufacturers determine the S.P.F. by dividing how many minutes it takes lab volunteers to burn wearing a thick layer of the product by the minutes they take to burn without the product.
But people rarely get the level of S.P.F. listed because labels do not explain how much to use, said Dr. Vincent A. DeLeo, chairman of dermatology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan.
“Sunscreen is tested at 2 milligrams per square centimeter of skin, which means you should be using two ounces each time to cover your whole body,” Dr. DeLeo said. “But for most people an eight-ounce bottle lasts the whole summer.”
(How muuch must it suck to be the sunscreen tester? “Mornin’, Bob, ready to be fried again?”)
As a pasty Northern European (Polish-Irish– “All the winners of Europe,” as a friend put it), I’m of two minds about this.
On the one hand, sunscreen is a Good Thing, because there are few things that suck more than having your whole skin just hurt. I don’t burn nearly as badly as my sister does– she tends to blister, and once spent the last couple days of a vacation in Mexico lying in a dark room with cold damp cloths on her shoulders– but I am true to my northern heritage, and turn bright red after a while in the sun. And I’ve had some sunburns that made just moving around agonizing– these days, I usually put about an ounce of sunscreen on the backs of my knees, because Jesus, that hurt.
On the other hand, though, this story sort of reinforces the common image of scientists and doctors as humorless scolds. Take, for example, the closing admonition:
Dr. Green in Australia said the best way to prevent skin cancer is to stay out of the sun during peak hours and wear sun-protective clothing. But Dr. Halpern said you can’t keep Americans wrapped up.
“There is only a small subset of American society that is willing to wear long-sleeved shirts and wide-brimmed — defined as four inches wide — hats on a sunny day at the beach,” he said. “Until we can get that behavior, the next best thing is sunscreen. Put on two coats, so you won’t miss any spots.”
You can almost picture this being said while shaking a cane at frolicking teenagers from the shelter of a rickety porch. “You damn kids, with your running about enjoying yourselves! Get off of my beach!”
Really, scolding people is the wrong way to go about this. If you want to get Americans to wear sunscreen and stay out of the mid-day sun, the thing to do is to go after celebities– as long as being tan is considered glamorous and sexy, there will be lots of people lying around in the sun with no skin protection. If you get movies and magazines and gossip shows to start hyping fish-belly white as the hot new look, you’ll empty the beaches right out.
And you’ll be a hero to the Polish-Irish forever.