Not All Sunscreens Created Equal

  • The Environmental Working Group is critical of the Food and Drug Administration for not requiring sunscreens to filter out UVA rays (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Labor Day weekend means backyard
grilling, maybe some time at the
beach. The last holiday of summer
usually includes a lot of time outside.
Lester Graham reports sunscreen
seems like a good idea, but there’s
some controversy about what works:

Transcript

Labor Day weekend means backyard
grilling, maybe some time at the
beach. The last holiday of summer
usually includes a lot of time outside.
Lester Graham reports sunscreen
seems like a good idea, but there’s
some controversy about what works:

The Environmental Working Group issued a report saying not all sunscreens are equal. The group is critical of the Food and Drug Administration for not requiring sunscreens to filter out one kind of solar radiation.

“There currently are no requirements for UVA filters in sunscreens. And they’ve been working on sunscreen standards since 1978.”

David Andrews is a senior scientist with the group. He’s says with a gap in FDA regulation, the industry is making unverified statements about how well sunscreens protect.

“So these are claims that are very misleading to the consumer and it makes it hard for everyone to get adequate protection.”

The Personal Care Products Council is a trade group for sunscreen makers. It says the Environmental Working Group’s report is – quote – “unscientific and unsubstantiated.”

Bottom line: look for a sunscreen that does protect you from both UVB and UVA rays, reapply often, and stay out of the sun as much as possible.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Low in the Vitamin D Department

  • How much sun you need to get enough Vitamin D depends on where you live, the time of year, how much skin you're exposing - and even the color of your skin. (Photo source: Kallerna at Wikimedia Commons)

According to two recent studies,
most kids in this country aren’t
getting enough Vitamin D. Scientists
say a lot of adults are low in the
vitamin, too. Ann Dornfeld looks
at whether the solution is as simple
as spending more time in the sun:

Transcript

According to two recent studies, most kids in this country
aren’t getting enough Vitamin D. Scientists say a lot of
adults are low in the vitamin, too. Ann Dornfeld looks at
whether the solution is as simple as spending more time in
the sun:

(sound of kids building sandcastles on the beach)

If you’ve been to the beach this summer, or anywhere
outdoors, you probably slathered on the obligatory
sunblock. If you were extra-careful, you wore a wide-
brimmed hat, or made sure your kids wore t-shirts in the
water instead of a skimpy suit.

Thing is, the solar radiation you work so hard to avoid is
also kind of healthy. That’s because it creates Vitamin D
through a chemical reaction in your skin.

“Vitamin D is essential.”

Susan Ott is a professor of medicine at the University of
Washington.

“It’s actually a steroid hormone that helps you absorb
calcium from your diet. And it works in your intestines so
the calcium can get into your system and become
available to the bones.”

Ott specializes in bone diseases like osteoporosis and
osteomalacia – both diseases that Vitamin D helps
prevent.

When you slather on sunblock, you’re also blocking the
creation of Vitamin D.

Before you run outside to soak up the last few rays of
summer unprotected, there’s a catch. Ott says no one
knows how much sun you need to get enough Vitamin D.
It depends on where you live, the time of year, how much
skin you’re exposing – and even the color of your skin.

“People with dark skin do not make as much Vitamin D
with the same amount of sunlight exposure – they need to
be out in the sunlight longer to get the same amount of
Vitamin D as a fair person.”

Scientists don’t have a way to recommend how much sun
you need to get enough D.

Kim Nowak-Cooperman is a nutritionist at Seattle
Children’s Hospital. She says a recent study looked at
people who live in Honolulu.

“They looked at 93 people who got three or more hours of
sun every day for five days a week. And they actually
found that half of those people were Vitamin D insufficient,
when you would think that they would be very, very high in
Vitamin D.”

Getting your Vitamin D from food can also be hard. It’s
naturally abundant only in oily fish like sardines, salmon
and mackerel. Since the 1930s, Vitamin D has been
added to milk to prevent the bone-softening disease
rickets in children. Now rickets is making a comeback.

Nowak-Cooperman says that’s because most kids don’t
drink enough milk to get the recommended daily
allowance of Vitamin D. And even that recommendation
might not even be enough.

“Originally that number was derived from the amount of
Vitamin D that would prevent rickets. We are now seeing
that Vitamin D has a more important role and that the
insufficiency of Vitamin D can be implicated in other
disease processes.”

Studies show Vitamin D might prevent everything from
rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes to tuberculosis. So the
American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends kids
get twice the US RDA for Vitamin D. That means 400 IU from either four glasses of milk or a
supplement.

Professor Susan Ott says adults should take a
supplement, too. She recommends 800 to 1000 IU. Any more than that, she says, and you risk
absorbing too much calcium.

“I think right now there’s a fad and people are taking too
much. I just went to the drugstore the other day and I saw
pills that were 5000 units. That’s enough to last you a
week! And I have patients that are taking that every day.
I’m worried they’re gonna get kidney stones.”

Ott says there’s also a trend for people to get blood tests
to determine whether they’re getting enough Vitamin D.
She says unless you’re elderly or have other serious
health problems, it probably isn’t necessary.

So what should you do? Ott says just pop that daily
supplement – 400 IU for kids, 800 for adults – and
keep slathering on the sunblock.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Open Season on Wolves

  • Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

Transcript

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

This is the first time a state has allowed an open hunting season on the wolf since it was protected by federal law.

Jon Rachael is state game manager for Idaho’s Fish and Game. He says there are about 1,000 wolves – far more than the original plan when the wolves were reintroduced.

So, hunters can kill as many as 220 of them.

“The intent of that is to reduce the population slightly. But that would leave us in the neighborhood of about 800 wolves at the end of the year.”

A Montana hunting season would allow another 75 wolves to be killed.

Environmentalists say it’s outrageous to kill so many wolves in the northern Rockies so soon after they were taken off the endangered species list.

The Environmental group Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop the wolf hunting season. A federal judge has not yet ruled on whether to stop the hunt.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Drilling for Radioactive Gas?

  • The Rulison device at insertion, 1969 (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy Digital Photo Archive)

There are proposals to drill for oil
and gas very close to the site of a
nuclear explosion. The device was
exploded underground in western Colorado
40 years ago this month. Natural gas
from wells near the site could be
distributed throughout the U.S. Some
experts are concerned the natural gas
could be radioactive. Conrad Wilson
reports regulators could allow drilling
closer to the blast site in the next
couple of years:

Transcript

There are proposals to drill for oil
and gas very close to the site of a
nuclear explosion. The device was
exploded underground in western Colorado
40 years ago this month. Natural gas
from wells near the site could be
distributed throughout the U.S. Some
experts are concerned the natural gas
could be radioactive. Conrad Wilson
reports regulators could allow drilling
closer to the blast site in the next
couple of years:

On September 10, 1969 the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 40-kiloton
nuclear bomb a mile and a half under ground. It was called Project Rulison. The
bomb was three times the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima.

The idea was to find peaceful uses for nuclear weapons. The federal government
hoped that nukes could be used to free up pockets of gas trapped below.

(sound of video)

The nuke did free up gas.

The government tested the gas by flaring it – burning it in the open – over the next
year. They discovered the natural gas was radioactive.

Marian Wells is a long time resident of Rulison. Her parent’s home was close to
the detonation site and the gas flares. Both of her parents died of cancer. So did
many of her neighbors.

She spoke before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

“My parents were given no notice that you were flaring contaminated gas. And
yet both my parents died of cancer. Cancer is prevalent in this area. And yes, no
one has studied those cause and effect. You don’t really care about us.”

There’s been no government studies connecting cancer and the Rulison blast,
but the community remains fearful and suspicious.

Gas drilling is allowed as close as three miles of the blast site. That natural gas
is piped around the country.

Now some companies say they want to drill for natural gas within a half mile of
ground zero.

The Department of Energy maintains that, for the most part, the gas near the
blast site is safe, but there’s some uncertainly.

Jack Craig heads up the Rulison site for the Department of Energy. Craig says
drilling closer to the nuclear blast site should move forward slowly.

“What we’re saying is do it in a sequential manor. So that you come in slowly
testing the wells as you go in for contaminants – specifically tritium – and, if you
don’t find anything, move in closer.”

Tritium is a radioactive substance produced by the blast. Breathing tritium can
cause cancer.

Chris Canfield works on environmental protection for the state oil and gas
commission. He heads up an annual audit on the Rulison site.

Canfield: “Simply put, everything that’s coming out of the ground is being
sampled, being analyzed.”

Wilson: “If someone were to come to you and say they want to drill within the
half mile of the Rulison blast site, would you say that’s safe?”

Canfield: “I wouldn’t really know at this time.”

Canfield says that the state would require a special hearing before it would
approve any drilling permits any closer.

Oil and gas commissioner Jim Martin says there are still too many unanswered
questions to allow drilling that close to the blast site.

“There are significant information gaps and that makes is very difficult to really
understand the risks either to the workers or to the public who live within some
distance of the drill site.”

Martin says he understands why people are skeptical. He says the United States
has made a lot of mistakes with radioactive materials. Navajo uranium miners
got cancer because of radio exposure. People downwind of above ground
detonations suffered. Martin says skepticism is warranted.

“So it’s not unreasonable to ask some pretty tough questions of the federal
government before we go further into that half mile perimeter and produce more
gas.”

Gas that could be burned to heat homes across the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

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