Sunscreens Cause Skin Cancer

Sunscreens Can Damage Skin, Researchers Find

Science Daily

This is straight out of Woody Allen's "Sleeper."

Researchers discovered that the active ingredients in sunscreen can penetrate the skin where they themselves do damage when exposed to UV radiation. The effect is negated if fresh sunscreen is applied (where it will remain for a period of time on the surface of the skin) to stop the UV rays from penetrating the lower layers of the skin. In other words, on the surface of the skin, the sunscreeen prevents UV rays from causing damage to your skin cells. However, when the chemicals in sunscreen penetrate to the lower layers of the skin they actually magnify the damaging effects of the sun's rays. This is, in a weird way, great news for the sunscreen industry, since the solution to the problem is to reapply sunscreen often. Long term, the solution is to find ways to keep the uv filters from being absorbed into the skin.