I ride my bike a lot.  And, I sit in the ballpark about 25 times a year- of which at least 22 are during the heat of the day.

Now, the first days of Spring- I use a no-name sun protector.  Nothing like what most folks buy- the SPF is about 10.   And, yes, I get a little sunburn. (The key word is “little”.)  And, then, I let the sun have its way.  Which means, like what happened this past weekend (that’s actually three weeks ago now), I came home with my face  a healthy shade of pink.

My ex would always admonish me that I should have used the sunscreen.  (We had about 6 different ones in the bathroom cabinet- the lowest with SPF 30.)  And, I would shrug it off, letting her know that those sunscreens are probably as harmful as the sun rays.  (Yes, this would set her off for at least five minutes.  Such is the life.)

(Just so you know, death from melanoma- skin cancer- is relatively low and very stable- at about 4 per 100K folks for men and 2 for women.  Incidence has risen from 22 to 27 per 100K over the past 15 years for men and 14 to 17 over the same span for women.)

But, you also should recall I’ve been warning you against using all those sanitizers.  The ones that grocery stores provide as you walk in, the ones folks like my daughter carry around in her pocket and use incessantly.

Because those sanitizers actually increase the permeability of our skin.  Their three active ingredients- Benzalkonium chloride, isopropyl alcohol, and ethanol- are probably also inducing microbes to mutate, to develop preservation methods against the onslaught of these sanitizers.  Moreover, data indicates that they are simply useless against microbial contaminants.

But, that’s not the worst side-effect.  Those sanitizers allow all kinds of environmental pollutants to enter our blood stream.  Starting with the ink on the receipts that the shopping centers and fast food joints (including Straybucks) hand you.  Normally, that ink doesn’t pose a human risk- but if you just applied sanitizer- all bets are off.

Well, that’s similar to what happens when you apply sunscreen.  Sure we know these products can protect us from sunburn.  Right now we know these four ingredients (there are 16 potential active ingredients)  find their sink in our blood.  But, those products also enter our skin- and we don’t have a good handle on how much of them end up there.

That’s why Drs. MK Matta, R Zusterzeel, NR Pilli, V Patel, DA Volpe, J Floria, L Oh, E Bashaw, I Zineh, S Adah, S Coelho, J Wang, LA Furlon, C Ganley, T Michele, and DG Strauss of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), along with Drs. C Sanabria, S Kemp, and A Godfrey (Spaulding Clinical Research, WI) ran these tests, with the results published  in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Network.

The study involved 24 (12 men and 12 women, ranging in age from 18 to 60)  subjects, randomly assigned to different sunscreens.  Of the four sunscreens, two were sprays, and there was one lotion and one cream. (NOTE:  Each product was tested  only on 6 of the 24 subjects.  The FDA only ran the test for a week, so there were no repeats of the protocol with a different product.]

The subjects dosed (2 mg of sunscreen per square centime of skin)  themselves four times a day for four days.  (They covered 75% of their bodies.)  Oh, yeah- none of the subjects had allergies or sensitivities to the products tested.

Blood tests were taken over 7 days- a total of 30 blood samples from each subject.

And, guess what? By the first day, every subject had detectable amounts of the active ingredients in their blood.  That includes avobenzone (it has great utility in blocking both UV-A and UV-B rays), the most common ingredient in sunscreens. The products tested all had the maximum permitted level of avobenzone- at 3%.  (Please note that avobenzene has been found to become highly reactive when subjected to chlorine (as in pools) and UV light (as in sun rays on our body.) And, the subjects managed to manifest about 4 nanograms per milliliter of blood when using the sprays, 4.3 when using lotion and 1.8 when the cream was employed.

Then, of course, there’s oxybenzone.  (Oxybenzone is often associated with allergic skin reactions, with anti-androgenic effects.) You guessed it- this was in the subjects’ blood, too. Those using sprays manifested levels of some 200 ng/ml for the sprays and 170 for the lotion.  (Note: Some regions of the US outlaw the use of oxybenzone because it damages coral.)

The subjects manifested between 2.9 and 7.8 ng/ml of octocrylene (which also damages coral) when using sprays and 5.7 when using the lotions or the creams.  Ecamsule (the FDA proposed banning this in sunscreens back in 2015), present in the creams, resulted in 1.5 ng/ml levels in the blood.

Now, according to the FDA, we don’t know if these levels are toxic.  (All this testing is in response to- wait for it- the 2014 passage of the Sunscreen Innovation Act.  Regulations may be proposed by Thanksgiving of this year.)  And, the FDA is hoping sunscreen manufacturers will provide them that data.  (Really?  Did we not learn anything from the 737 Max disaster and Boeing’s self-pronunciations?)

Except the manufacturers are asking for waivers on testing (not eliminating testing, just not presenting their results for “a while”) for avobenzone, homosalate, octinoxate, octisalate, octocrylene, oxybenzone, ensulizole and meradimate.  Let’s be fair- testing for each of these compounds costs more than $ 5 million apiece- or a drop more than $ 50 million for the lot of them.

And, let’s really be fair.  The US sun-care market is more than $ 2 billion- with sunscreens accounting for 4/5 [80%] of that total.  So, the testing is a drop in the bucket [OK 0.25% of the total revenue generated].)

We deserve to be safe!