Sunscreen's Oxybenzone in All of Us

The Centers for Disease Control has determined that 97 percent of us have a sunscreen chemical, oxybenzone, coursing through our blood and perhaps monkeying with our hormones and causing low-birthweight babies. For a list of the hundreds of sunscreens that contain this chemical, see this Skin Deep database. The Environmental Working Group has a comprehensive statement here.

An excellent summary of the statement and CDC study can be found on Rachel's Democracy newsletter # 952.

The Food and Drug Administration has failed miserably in its duty to
protect the public from toxic chemicals like oxybenzone in personal
care products. At the request of industry lobbyists, including Supreme
Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who represented the Cosmetic
Toiletry and Fragrance Association, the agency has delayed final
sunscreen safety standards for nearly 30 years. FDA issued a new draft
of the standards last October under pressure from EWG, but continues
to delay finalizing them at the behest of the regulated industry.

The Skinny:
Sunscreen works and it does help prevent skin cancer, but so do protective clothing and shade. Also, most of us don't get enough Vitamin D, so you don't always want sunscreen on every inch of you all the time. Check your sunscreen labels for oxybenzone, as well as PABA, also a nasty one. Be especially cautious if you are pregnant. And don't forget the healing effects of a pina colada while on the beach. Cheers.

Pharmaceuticals in Tap Water

Kudos to the Associated Press, who this week published an outstanding series on Big Pharma showing up in the drinking water supplies of 41 million Americans. So far. AP reporters combed the results of over 50 metropolitan water tests. Among the findings:

Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.

So what does it all mean for our health? The AP used a sobering kicker:

...some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.

"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects," says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime. Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses. That's why aside from therapeutic doses of fluoride injected into potable water supplies pharmaceuticals are prescribed to people who need them, not delivered to everyone in their drinking water.

The Skinny: We've heard that reverse-osmosis filters, and even relatively inexpensive carbon filters like Brita, do a decent job of filtering some of these compounds out. If you think bottled water is a viable alternative, think again: the plastics that leach into the water from the bottle, not to mention the carbon-footprint of transporting and bottling water, make tap water a better option. Wouldn't it be nice if we kept it clean?

Hormone Replacement Therapy and Cancer

Even five years after women in a landmark study stopped taking hormone replacement pills, they have an increased risk of lung and breast cancer, according to new research published by the American Medical Association. The AP reports today:

The authors said the new results send the same message they've been advocating ever since the study ended: Health risks from estrogen-progestin pills outweigh their benefits, and they should only be used to relieve hot flashes and other menopause symptoms, in the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible duration.

It's yet another example of how artificial hormones can mess up our health. The much-touted promises of replacement hormones, once thought to be a sort of fountain of youth to protect us against heart diseases and other ravages of aging, turned out to be a whole lot of hype, and worse. In fact, the study of women taking the pills was halted early because of elevated health risks.

The Skinny: A few hot flashes are better than cancer. Don't take HRT.