The Episode Where We Ruin Sunscreen

Since ancient times, human beings have known the sun can be dangerous. Too much exposure to its rays can burn and prematurely age the skin. In fact, the concept of sunscreen may be a non-human invention, as various types of animals coat themselves in protective layers of mud to stave off the at-times brutal effects of heat and sunshine. Fast forward to the modern era -- sunscreen is a huge industry, and people across the planet use it on a daily basis. The science seems sound. Unlike some skin care products, sunscreen actually works... however, it appears sunscreen may also have a dark side. Tune in to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controled decade. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. The weather is beautiful here in Atlanta,
in the south of the US. People constantly talk about

(00:48):
the weather. We had a very moody atmosphere here. Just
yesterday there was big sea shanty energy in the morning,
We're talking rain, thunder, felt maritime them. By the afternoon.
It was stereotypical spring. It was beautiful. You know, you
could hear the birds, you can see the squirrels jump around.

(01:09):
You would go outside, and according to experts, if you
go outside, you need sunscreen. And Parker wrote to us recently, Parker,
you had a suggestion specifically about sunscreen, and without spoiling
the letter here, uh, you said, the story of sunscreen

(01:33):
goes deeper in a way that you thought might interest
your fellow listeners. And before we jump into the facts here, guys,
I just wanted to ask you all, like, what's your
what's your experience with sunscreen? You know, experts recommend that
you wear it every day every time that you're outside,

(01:55):
and I feel like, being somewhat of a troglodyte, which
means cave person myself, I feel like, uh, I definitely
do not do that, because the sun is my ancient nemesis.
How about you, guys, I burn, I'm I'm a pale boy. Um.
I just kind of go for whichever sunscreen has like
the most aluminum in it. I feel I feel like

(02:15):
that's the one that's going to protect me the best.
M interesting call. Okay, yeah, um, you know yeah. I
grew up being covered in the stuff, and I actually
began to resent the whole Okay, it's been it's been
an hour in the sun. Come on over here, let's
get your back again. That's my mom probably speaking dude.

(02:41):
My dad. My dad just he doesn't burn, and I
don't understand it. He just doesn't burn. Does he a
leathery man? He's a leatherman? Yeah, sure, yeah, but but
I I always burned like crazy I would get crazy birds,
like the stuff that no one wants to see, even
in a horror movie. And you know it, I just

(03:04):
didn't like the process. So later in life, I don't
really wear sunscreen, but I will wonder been Like you
have a lot of travels. If you just end up
somewhere where you're you realize, oh, man, I should probably
be wearing sunscreen for this. What is your go to? Like?
What what do you how do you make a decision
about what to get? Ah? Got it? That's an interesting question.

(03:24):
That's that's a bit of a set up there, and
I greatly appreciate it. Um. First, it's it's like that
old story of what do you do when you find
yourself in the woods? Your first step is to ask yourself,
what the hell did I do wrong? You find myself
in the woods? Yes, sunscreen is again, it's recommended there.

(03:45):
There's so many types, but it's it's recommended, um in general,
wherever you live, whoever you are, if you are spending
time outside during the day. Here are the facts. Okay, Okay,
that's cool. I didn't answer my question, but it's cool.
Let's go, let's move. Do you feel like I did?

(04:07):
Not answer your question as to so specifically, then before
you get into the facts, to answer your question, Yes,
depending depending on the environment, even I would keep sunscreen
of some sort, but I would typically have to find
some sort of natural alternative to something store bought. If

(04:29):
that makes sense, got you? Oh totally, that makes that
makes a ton of sense. I guess the only reason
I wanted to talk about because I I don't know
if this is what you out there listening do, but
I'll find myself in a you know, depending on which
city I'm in, just a store that sells sunscreen, and
I will just grab something. Oh yeah, and I don't
spend a ton of time thinking about what it is.

(04:52):
I go for a higher number just because I am
rather pale. But like, I don't make an informed decision ever,
I see. Yeah, yeah, yes, So like if you're if
you're going to a beach and you don't live by
a beach, uh, and you stop in at the we'll
just fictionally call it the beach store. You stop in
at beach store or Panama Jacks or whatever it's gonna

(05:14):
be called ron John perhaps, yes, yes, the serf store. Well,
that's fine. It's the same thing as the beach store.
Hopefully the beach store and serf store owners who are
listening to the show right now are will forgive us
for conflating them unfairly if indeed we have. But you
go in, you get your beach towel, and you're like,

(05:35):
I need my flip flops that I am inevitably going
to lose or my children will inevitably lose in the
course of this um shore shore side adventure. And then yes,
you grab, you grab sunscreen because you probably didn't bring
it from home, right for many people, And you're in
a hurry because you want to get to the beach, right,

(05:56):
you want to front the infinity, that is the horizon
of the ocean. Yes, I understand what you're saying now.
I originally was thinking you meant like lost in the wilderness,
somewhere off the grid, but you mean going, You mean
going somewhere recreationally. Yeah, I assume many of us have

(06:18):
just ended up at a beach at some point for
some for one reason or another. Uh yeah. But in
the big takeaway here is that maybe a lot of
us don't know or think much about sunscreen. We read
the label, you see uh SPF, and you think I
want the highest number. Why would somebody buy a lower number.

(06:42):
They're the same price, they're probably a few dollars more.
But it does feel weird, right, Like you're you're looking
at the range of s pfs and you're thinking, well,
I want, I want, I want full protection, right, text
me from the sun's cancerous rays, you know, give me

(07:04):
the superpowered stuff right right, And and just slightly alternatively,
my wife is Cuban and she doesn't like to wear
full like the full sunscreen, so she gets the stuff
that's like SPF four. They call it like bronzing or
you know, these things that are supposed to help. It's
more like a little a tan, like a copper tone
kind of thing. Yeah, the it's it's funny that that

(07:29):
we're talking about this at the very beginning, because, um,
I don't know about anybody else, but I was always
confused by the idea that a company would know it
could make the best thing and then sell a lesser
version of that thing, and it happens in every industry, right,
It's like, it's weird that, um, you know, if you

(07:50):
know that they're like if you are just picking things
out of the blue, like if you were Apple, Why
do you sell multiple versions of the same computer when
you know that you could just you could just sell
the best one and then everybody would like, I I
get it. I understand the economics of it. It just
it always felt strange to me. And I think that's

(08:12):
the same kind of disconnect people experience when they run
into sunscreen. But the difference between sunscreen and a lot
of those a lot of other consumer products. Yes, folks, spoiler,
this is a consumer products kind of episode, and there is, uh,

(08:33):
there are a number of conspiracies of foot. The difference
between sunscreen and a lot of other products, especially in
the world of skincare and makeup, is that sunscreen works.
There is scientific basis to it. It's not some kind
of like woo woo. We had an angel sneeze on
these pomegranate leaves and then we rolled it up with

(08:55):
like the uh farts of puppies, and then we made
it a cream and we sprayed it uh and and
if you walk through it at noon, your eye wrinkles
will dissipate or something like that A little bit. Well,
you know, people will do a lot if they feel
like they're combating aging. But that's true. Yeah, it's I mean,

(09:18):
it's all industry, the idea of of slowing down the
hands of of of father time and uh, you know,
like cosmetic surgery is probably the most extreme example of that,
but so many products, beauty products, that skin care lines
there where there is a lot of snake oil wrapped
up in it. Uh. And you know, sure there's testimonials

(09:38):
and things like that, but it's true. Man. I think
it's a really good point that sunscreen and the whole
idea of SPF and the gradations of that is absolutely
a scientifically proven thing that benefits you and keeps those
harmful rays from penetrating that that sweet sweet dermist. So
let's talk about it. Here are the facts. What exactly

(10:00):
is sunscreen? Well, uh, it turns out sunscreen is kind
of like, uh, it's kind of like a cross, a
very tidy cross. We wave at a very big vampire
and it protection kind of because if you think about
the normal day, the beautiful spring that's occurring in Atlanta,

(10:22):
realize it's happening because of some very scary stuff. We
are right next to, astronomically speaking, an enormous dying star
and it is screaming as it dies in terms of energy.
It is responsible for the continued existence of life on Earth.

(10:43):
It is amazing, It is crucial. It is dangerous, and
since ancient times human beings have been aware of this,
and they've been like, hey, this this thing right creates
the food that we eat. Uh. And it also feels
like it would kill us if it was close enough.

(11:03):
As a matter of fact, even if we stand around it,
it starts to mess with the way we look and
the way we feel. We have to figure something out. Yeah,
And and humans have been coming up with ways to
prevent the sun from harming them for millennia and really,
you know, one of the best ones is to go

(11:24):
the troglodyte route, stay inside as much as you can,
you know, and hunt when you have to and at
certain times. But other things have been really treatment salves
that have been created, things to actually put on the
skin to stop the burning a lot of times, and
then other times to actually prevent the burning from happening

(11:45):
in the first place. And it's all to stop this
tiny little sliver of the light spectrum essentially called ultra violet. Yeah,
you definitely want to block that stuff because it can
give you all ideas of skin cancer. Uh, in addition
to just you know, causing general wear and tear on

(12:06):
your skin overall, just you know, from the the effects
of the sun. Um. But yeah, it's something that has
has been on the minds of humans since ancient times,
when folks you know, already were aware of these effects,
these damaging effects that the sun could have on the
human body. In early civilizations, folks developed some kind of

(12:28):
more holistic remedies I guess for treating the sun. They
didn't really have science, but they had trial and error. Uh.
And in ancient Greece, for example, they used olive oil.
In Egypt, they would use extracts of jasmine and rice
and other plants and just you know, like you said, matt,
rub it on their body and kind of like a
poultice or a salve. Uh. And for thousands of years,

(12:51):
people have also used um, the elements zinc, zinc oxide
in a in a paste form um. And it's actually
still very important ingredient in modern sunscreen. Yeah. It's true.
You find something that works, you stick with what with
what works? Right. Uh. This is inarguably before we get

(13:13):
into the messed up parts of this idea. This is
inarguably a good idea. We're gonna get into some messed
up stuff today, so it's important to note at the
at the offset here that sunscreen is in general a
good idea protecting yourself from the sun. Obviously, I'm very

(13:35):
biased because I see it as an antagonist, but still
everyone can agree protecting yourself and your loved ones from
the sun. I know it's a very pro vampire right now,
It's still important because sunscreen doesn't just protect you from
that very uh small, dangerous uh sliver of the spectrum

(13:56):
that that you're describing, Matt, it can also in while
doing that, it lowers your risk of some very nasty
forms of skin cancer. It can prevent premature aging of
the skin. And if you are sensitive about what you
you know, if you're sensitive about your skin, then this

(14:17):
can assist in maintaining what would be called an even
skin tone, meaning it will if you are freckle prone
like Matt and myself, then if you know, sunscreen will
reduce your freckle ratio, right, yeah, you'd be surprised. I
got quite a lot of freckles on my arms, not
so much in my face, but tons of arm freckles.
It's weird, you know. Freckles. It's a weird thing. I

(14:40):
don't understand. It's like I can tan incredibly intensely in
these tiny circles. Yeah, freckles, it's a weird thing. Freckles
are strange. But but so like if you hate freckles,
sunscreen is great for you. Right, That's that's what an

(15:01):
even skin tone. Probably, that's that's a good way to
explain even skin tone. So ancient times, olive oil, like
Noel said, Jasmine Rice extracts all the hits. Uh. The
story of modern sunscreen, or what we call modern sunscreen,
really starts in the nineteen thirties, kicks into high gear

(15:21):
into There's a guy from Florida. He's an airman and
he's a pharmacist. His name is Benjamin Green, and he
does something necessary but kind of gross. Uh. He takes
something called red vet pet which is a short cutie

(15:42):
name for red veterinary petrolatum. So think of like um vassoline.
He takes this this kind of vassoline that it comes
from the world of veterinary medicine, and he slathers it
on himself and he's like talking to his fellows soldiers
and he's slathering on them during World War two and

(16:03):
he's like, the sun's gonna kill us. We need to
protect ourselves. So they're they're slimy soldiers. Now that's pretty grass, dude.
Yeah man, okay, yeah, I take a good tiny diversion
real quick, just to bring up a lovely piece of
pop culture surrounding sunscreen. I don't know if you guys
remember the song the bas Lerman song, um Everybody's Free

(16:26):
to wear Sunscreen, which was actually featured in the opening
sequence of season two or three of The Sopranos, but
it's taken from a column by Mary Schmick from the
Chicago Tribune on June one, titled advice like youth probably
just wasting on the young, and it, you know, gives

(16:47):
all these pieces of advice. It's meant to be like
a commencement speech for a you know, a graduating class
that does not exist. She did actually give this, but
it it repeats the recommendation of where sunscreen with other
little pith pieces of advice. And there was actually like
an urban legend, uh that Kurt Vonnagat had delivered this
as a commencement speech at m I t uh. But

(17:08):
that it was totally not true. It's almost like a mandela,
that kind of situation. Curvanna get even said when he
was pressed to like reprint this amazing speech that he made,
um that he would proudly have taken credit for the
words if they were his. But check out that song
if you give a chance. It's a lot of a
lot of fun and it's very inspiring. Yeah. The the
thing that's described in that song is not read that

(17:31):
pet right, right, right? So so the again slimy soldiers.
This is gross, gross stuff. There's not a ton of
science behind it other than it being able to stick
to the skin and function stick to human skin and
function as a physical barrier between the skin and the sun.

(17:53):
I am holding a very anti sun position, but I
have never deviated from this position so consistently anti sun. Well,
please please, let's just all be aware of my bias,
which is survival beast. Why read that pet is it?
Is it like petroleum or is it like a slightly

(18:15):
different substance that's really interesting in petrol atom? I bet
it's a petroleum based substance. Yeah, it's it's vastline basically
the non name brand or the non proprietary eponym is
would be uh, slimy and shiny soldiers. Yes, slimy and shiny.

(18:39):
And after the war, after World War Two, Benjamin Green
classes up his act. He adds coconut oil to this,
he adds cocoa butter. It's getting fancy. Uh. This eventually
will become what is known as Coppertone suntan cream, which, um,
you know, Matt, earlier you were describing the idea of

(19:00):
getting a little bit of protection from the sun, but
also helping yourself acquire a tan right, a general a
general sheen about oneself. That's that's what copper tone is doing. Uh.
And then at this time there's still no SPF. Like
the one thing people care about when they read a

(19:20):
label on sunscreen today is SPF and that doesn't exist
until about the roundabouts in the ninet seventies. And as
we said, it's just a way to measure and to
show consumers exactly how much of those UV rays are
being blocked or how what percentage And that's not a

(19:42):
percentage though, that's not what the rating, Uh, it's it's
it becomes a tough thing to even talk about. It
is a percentage of UV blocking power. But it's represented
in a scale, in a weird scale that doesn't really
make that much sense. It's not super intuitive. It measures
the amount that gets through rather than the amount that's blocked. Right, Yeah,

(20:06):
so like SPF fifteen, it's like a measure over time.
So what it means that is that one of harmful
radiation from that evil dying star will reach your skin. Uh.
And that so you're like, okay, I have protected myself

(20:26):
against fourteen of fifteen, yes, death rays from this space monster,
and that works as long as I have applied this
at um an even rate which never happens, of two
milligrams uh per centimeter of human skin. And then the

(20:51):
person wearing it has to change that every two hours, Right,
they have to re up, just like Matt's parents called
him over and then and grease them up again. Yeah,
grease up for a while. They wanted you to have
a good time at the beach. Today, this is a
massive industry. As research continued, sunscreen evolved, So if you

(21:16):
walk into your beach store or your surf store, you
will see multiple types of sunscreen, multiple brands, water resistance
stuff or stuff that purports to have an amazingly high SPF.
You'll also see broader spectrums of protection right like u

(21:37):
V A UVB protection protecting you from both long and
short range ultraviolet rays. So far, so good, right, Well, no,
unfortunately it comes when it comes to sunscreen. There is
some stuff they don't want you to know. Will pause
for word from our sponsors. Get greased up over here,

(21:59):
we'll be back. I definitely missed a part of my
back right, like you know, around the shoulders, like sometimes
you ever get a sunburn where you can see your
fingers where where you kind of up. The last time
I tried to apply sunscreen, I realized I hadn't done

(22:20):
it in in a long time, and I did a really
bad job and I just had like, you know, the white,
the really creamy white kind that you really have to
rub in to make it disappear. I got it all
over my beard and it just wasn't rubbed in at all,
and I looked like a freaking idiot. Um. So, you know,
applying sunscreen takes practice, know what you're doing. Here's where

(22:40):
it gets crazy. There are issues here. There are two
big issues, and Parker wrote to us about one that
maybe I'm familiar to a lot of our listeners outside
of the world of makeup or skincare, and that's corruption
in the sunscreen industry. Parker wrote to us specifically about

(23:03):
something called Purrito Sintella Green level unscented Son, which spoilers
fellow conspiracy realist none of us knew about. None of
us had that um lightbulb moment where we said, oh, oh, no, parrito,
what happened to Barrito? Yeah, I was actually I really

(23:25):
didn't know if it was purreto or parrito because I
was hungry and I thought about burritos. Is a parrito
like a burrito for cats? Okay, I'm done, No, But
but this is such a ridiculous name. It almost feels
like it needs a red vet pet type such types shortening.
But there really is nothing you can do with Parrito
Sintella green level unscented Son's it really it's gotta like

(23:47):
power through it. But apparently this is like really popular, right,
It was like known as the internet's favorite sunscreen. Um,
but it kind of got uh lampooned a bit on
social media when the study revealed that they were not
being particularly honest about the level of protection that it offered. Yeah,
so imagine you're at your beach store, you're at your

(24:09):
serf store, or you or you're just a person who
takes care of their skin, like obviously none of us
do on this show. Yeah, right, so you go to
you go to this, No, we look okay. I think yeah, thanks,
I think we look okay. So anyway, you're you're a
hypothetical person, no specific person. You go. You care about

(24:30):
your skin because you want to be alive and not
have skin cancer, and you want to look relatively good.
So you grab this, Uh, you grabbed this stuff, this
green level unscented son because it has SPF fifty. Well,
a study came out that revealed this was not the

(24:50):
actual case. If you look at the ingredients, if you
take that stuff to a lab and you test for SPF,
you'll find that it has an SPF of team less
than half of the fifty claims. Yeah, and we know
that the experiments are The study that revealed this is legit.

(25:11):
It comes from something called I n C I decoder.
Put let's put aside the question whether this was like
purposely misleading or whether this was honestly a mistake or
a negligence issue. The thing is this opens a door
to a much wider problem. It's not one. It's not

(25:32):
like one brand of this sunscreen, is it. No, no, no, no, no,
no no no. This this goes across the spectrum here. Um.
There there was a consumer reports report that came out
not that long ago, and it found it found that

(25:52):
thirty six out of fifty three sunscreens that it tested
did not have the SPF level represented. So it was
lower than what was represented on the bottle of spray
or the lotion or the bar that you're going to
put on yourself, whatever was. It was a lower SPF
than it claimed to be. How How is the f

(26:13):
d A not involved in this? Like you think there
would be like sample testing to ensure that there is
truth in advertising for these types of products in the
same way that you know drugs are regulated. Well, here's
the thing there, there are a ton of reasons why
this could happen. Right, It could be a single batch,
right that maybe the SPF wasn't quite right, and maybe

(26:35):
that's just it you tested a bad batch. You know,
maybe there are standards that are falling. There a lot
of reasons, yeah, which are not necessarily deceitful. There are
also loopholes around kind of the government regulation or standards, right,
like how do you test stuff? When do you test stuff?
Which is probably one of the biggest deals here. Uh.

(26:58):
For instance, if um, if we think of the US
and other manufacturers right from different countries, then you can
get around loopholes by just taking off SPF. It's like, oh, hey, no, no,
we're not doing a sunscreen thing. We have some of
the ingredients, but we're not claiming it now. We're just

(27:20):
uh you know, now we're just good time sudden lotion.
No promises, right, That's that's the mode, no promises, promises.
But again, as we said before, and I think this
is true, one of the biggest purchasing factors for a
consumer is that giant SPF label and number, right, so so,

(27:42):
but I I appreciate the point you were making that,
which is that this doesn't necessarily mean manufacturers are bad
bad actors. There could be bad storage. Like you said,
variations between batches, different testing standards. That's huge. Also, Yes,
counterfeit ding, yes, Uh, fabrication of testing results, which is

(28:05):
a little bit easier to do than you might think.
I want to just we're gonna talk about this later
in the episode, but we just kind of We've been
mentioned the storage of the substance and how that can
happen be a factor. We have found in the research
that that is a major factor for some sunscreens and
the chemicals that are inside of them. Who but a yeah,

(28:27):
expiration dates are not just for uh, not just for
food in your grocery store. So we can't if we're
being absolutely fair, we can't say all of these companies
are lying to you their pawns of big Sun and
they want you to burn. What we can't. What we
can say instead is that the burden, the burden of

(28:50):
informed consent is placed on the consumer. Here Parker sent
this great article by a writer named rio Era Newton
writing for The Strategist in New York magazine, and this
author notes the actual way to figure out what you're buying,

(29:11):
what you're paying for, and it it's some work you'd
have to be like if you're standing in front of
sunscreen the grocery aisle or wherever, at your beach store,
your serf store, that you would have to be on
your phone for a few minutes because you have to
look up a product's name or what's called an inn
DC number, which is a ten digit number. I know,

(29:31):
how how how juicy is this? Right? It's kind of dry.
It's a ten digit code that identifies uh drugs labeler,
product and trade package size on something called in d
C list dot com. And why do you have to
look up this crazy ten digit number? This like then

(29:52):
this v I N of bottle of sunscreen because that
number verifies the FDA reg stration the question you asked earlier, noal,
and it shows that it's gone through testing in the US.
That's not the whole step. The next step, Rio says
is you have to go to Consumer Reports, which has

(30:13):
a lot of research on sunscreen, and you have to
compare these. So at this point you are like at
least twelve minutes deep in the sunscreen system on your
phone in front of the people are going to the
beach without you, you know what I mean? Yea, yeah,
I mean maybe just like use a parasol instead, you know,

(30:35):
or a big floppy hat that probably helps um. But
sunscreen is definitely a part of the skincare industry, right Uh.
You know, even certain skin creams or moisturizers for example,
are like various products they'll have some form of sunscreen
in them, or will offer some sort of SPF protection,

(30:56):
even if it's not just purely uh sun lootion um.
And there are absolutely important and positive qualities to this product.
It can, in fact stop those rays, those ultra violet
rays from penetrating your skin and causing cancer. Uh. That
is unless it actually can cause cancer. Uh, depending on

(31:18):
what goes into the stuff. And we'll pause on that
cliff hanger. We have to pause. There will be back
afterward from our sponsor, and we are back. We are
still standing with you in our hypothetical beach surf shop,

(31:43):
which will call it um what should we call it?
Polly Shores? Like, I'm sorry, guys, I keep harping on,
Ron John. I think people that aren't from this part
of the country, I don't even know what that is,
but I think it's a Myrtle Beach thing. Or it's like, yeah,
there's a shark, and I remember the T shirts when
I was a kid. It's a nostalgia thing for me.

(32:03):
Plus it's fun to say, Ron John, but I love
poly shorts. That's way better. So well, they can they
can all exist. You know, Myrtle Beach has a booming economy, right,
so so like there are a lot of stores. One
of the turns the gross domestic product comes from airbrush
t shirts, right, and and and that's just the gross
so soh so we're at poly shorts, Paul, I'm sorry you.

(32:29):
You drew the short serf straw this one. We're standing
with you in this sisle. We're uh, we're already spending
a lot of time trying to figure out what's happening
with this sunscreen? Is that SPF real? Right? Because we
know it turns out, for one reason or another, it

(32:49):
is often not what it purports to be. There's a
second problem, and there have been multiple claims over the years.
You're thinking about this, right, let's just get into this snario.
You're you're thinking about this. You're looking at the sunscreen,
and you're on your phone and you found this stuff
and consumer reports and blah blah blah, and you think, Okay,

(33:09):
I I found one that I think is is gonna work.
And then some some dude breezes past you will flip
flops and cargo shorts and he says, you know, he's
a bit of a leatherman, and he says, de vulvery kid,
that stuff gives you cancer. There there's been so many

(33:30):
uh that, there have been so many uh claims in
the past that sunscreen itself, particularly the chemicals in it,
the active ingredients, can in fact harm your body, harm
your various systems, and in some cases become carcinogenic, create

(33:55):
cancerous conditions. Maybe not skin cancer, So maybe in avoiding
skin answer, you are suffering from another type of cancer
because of the active ingredients in these substances. Is that true?
Let's see, Let's go to the experts. Right, let's go

(34:16):
to the experts. So that cargo shorts guy breezes past,
drops some drops some conspiracy knowledge on you on his
way to get um what are those things that go
on your upper arm? Yeah, on his way to get floaties,
just flings by. Alright, alright, alright, choosing that one, hud Well,

(34:37):
guess what that one? That one causes cancer? Ready, don't
don't use that one. I gotta get these floaties over here.
That's pretty good, Matt. Sorry, I've been watching his new
YouTube channel recently, Matthew McConaughey's YouTube. Chell. You know he
I saw this amazing, insightful interview with him. I don't know,
dude's gonna be running Texas before you know it, it's coming.

(35:00):
I have no I have no doubt about it. Well,
probably one of my most shining moments in podcast UMAs
I got to be on a call with Matthew McConaughey.
Wasn't video, but that voice man unmistakable, and he was
pitching a podcast. Obviously he went the YouTube route. Hey,
there's still time in room to a podcast. Okay, sorry,

(35:21):
um no, let's go. You go to the experts, right,
You don't that guy. You can't trust that guy, not
not McConaughey, but the dude that was there in the
store who knows. Yeah, we have established that in this scenario.
But uh, you know, you can't take somebody's just quick,
offhand comment as fact. So you got to look to

(35:41):
the experts. What are they saying, Well, here's the deal.
You're looking at studies from experts, or at least a
scientist or people who are or researchers who are spending
a lot of time and effort to get results maybe
or maybe they're working for a company, or maybe they're
working against a company. Because what you end up looking

(36:02):
at when you're when you're researching this stuff is that
you've got some folks saying that these studies are legitimate,
and then others a lot of experts saying these a
lot of the studies that say some of these things
are essentially misinformation or disinformation, Like it's not right, and
it's the results that are being regurgitated, you know, just

(36:26):
and spoken about are actually mischaracterized. Yeah. So let's take
for example, Dr Jennifer Lynn, who is Insistent Professor of
Dermatology at Harvard Medical School co director of Melanoma Risk
and Prevention Clinic. She has an insightful response about some
of the kind of alarmist or fearmongering reports here, uh,

(36:49):
specifically about oxyben zone, and she says, there has been
no conclusive evidence that oxyben zone is harmful to humans. Uh.
And she she notes something that happens and a lot
of studies and a lot of pop science. You'll hear
a study that says like, um, insert substance, exert substance

(37:12):
so and so has been found to cause cancer in
mammals or you know, to somehow like have a dilatorious
effect on you. But they don't talk about how that
study was conducted or what actually happens. So Dr Lynn
points out that organizations that have raised concerns about oxyben

(37:34):
zone site studies that were done on rats, which are
not human yet, and that rats were physically fed oxyben zone.
They weren't shaving the rats and then putting sunscreen on them,
they were forcing them to eat this stuff. And according
to Dr Lynn, it would quote take an individual human being,

(37:55):
I imagined two hundred and seventy seven years of sunscreen
use to achieve even the same dose that produced the
harmful effects in these rats. And that's based on a
study from the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
in ten. But think carefully, right, it's a number of

(38:16):
years ago, yeah, four almost four lust So so what
what changes? This is the second big issue. There's a
recent study that came out. It turns out that sunscreen,
the stuff you use to prevent skin cancer from exposure
to sunlight, might actually, yes, have a chance of giving

(38:40):
you cancer. That's the claim people are making. This study,
which was by several French and US scientists, looked at
skincare brands overall, Laureal, Neutrogena, Bioderma, very like the big
ones picture, the big brands of skin care. It looked

(39:00):
at all of these, and it looked especially it's something
called octocry ling. Octo cry len sounds interesting. It's a chemical, right,
And this is kind of weird, and it's a bit
difficult to navigate because octo cry ling isn't necessarily the issue.
The bad thing that octo crawling itself. What happens is

(39:24):
over time it degrades into something called benzo phenone. Yeah,
and benzo phenone is the think of it like the
final form, right to think of it? Think of it like, um,
If octo cry ling is the magua, benzo finon is
the gremlin. That's actually wow, that's actually pretty not a

(39:46):
bad comparison. You just feed it time. Don't feed it time, Yes,
don't feed it time. Uh, this is weird. So octocryling
is already controversial in a number of is due to
concerns about its effect not on humans but on the
overall environment. It's been banned in a couple of places,

(40:07):
including Hawaii and the US Virgin Islands. This study did
something pretty neat. They said, we need to figure out
what happens to sunscreen when it's just left on a shelf,
because think about it, the sunscreen you probably buy is
not refrigerated or something like that. You know what I mean.

(40:28):
It's not like in a cool dry cellar or something like.
It's just it's on the shelf, next to the flip flops,
next to the towels, next to the floaties, et cetera.
And it's been for a while, and it's been in
poly shores for a while. Might even have some visible
dust on the top of the cap. Uh. This study

(40:49):
used an artificial aging process to replicate that passage of
time to show what like, to show what happens to
these products when they've sat on a shelf at poly
Shore's for around a year, ballpark a year. The thing
is that the concentration of this chemical, this harmful chemical,

(41:11):
increases the longer it sits on that shelf. So we're
reading SPF, but what you should be reading is the
expiration date. According to FDA regulations, sunscreen has a shelf
life of three years. But this study, yeah, but this
study shows if it's on that shelf for a year,

(41:34):
depending if this one thing, this octo cry len is
in it, then it is slowly kind of jekyl and
hiding into a thing that is very easily absorbed by
your skin. That you very much do not want in
your body, and it gets worse over time. I believe
the concentration can actually increase the longer that you leave

(41:56):
it on the shelf. Um, so it's very very important
to keep a close eye on those ex expiration days.
And and this stuff, by the way, benzophenone is banned
for use as UH an ingredient in food or an
ingredient in cosmetics, so you so it's not there. It's
not legally allowed to to be in that bottle of

(42:21):
whatever you buy. And it's more than sunscreen. By the way,
there was a study in the nine nineties that found
just how how successfully this stuff is absorbed by the skin.
And it makes a pretty solid argument too before regulation,
you know, to prohibit this chemical from being included and

(42:42):
stuff like sunscreen or shampoo or perfume. But the problem
goes even further. Octocry Lene has not met those FDA
regulations for safety or effectiveness. Still I think it still hasn't.
Like as of February twenty nine, team as of two
years ago, this stuff was still not meeting the guidelines

(43:07):
from the FDA, which means that if you wore sunscreen
anytime before UH depending on what you bought. The odds
aren't looking great. Unless you like rolled in mud, hippo
or elephant style to protect yourself from the sun. You've
probably got some of this stuff in you. Yeah, and

(43:30):
can we let's talk really quickly a little more about
the Hawaii banning because that just occurred. Hawaii just past
legislation that banned two chemicals in sunscreens actually pull up
the Senate bill here. UM Center for Biological Diversity sent
this out on March nine of this year, and they

(43:52):
are banning two petrochemicals within sun screens, avo ben zone
and octocry Eileen, and the two the biggest things that
came out of this, or one of the biggest reasons
that they're banning it is because they've found that these
chemicals are actually bleaching the coral reefs around Hawaii. Uh,

(44:16):
these chemicals are coming off of people's skin when the
sunscreen has applied to them and hurting the environment to
that like having a huge effect on the environment. Um,
that's that's a big deal. And it's their chemicals that
you're putting on your body, like directly that's being absorbed.
As Ben said, it's not a super sunny proposition. I

(44:40):
will never forgive myself for that one. Uh, you're you're
absolutely right, Matt. It's important to note that this process,
which has been proven by this study or you know,
there's a strong argument that it occurs fairly commonly. Um,
this process was welcomed by people who believed previous myths
or mischaracterizations about ugly chemicals in skin care products. So

(45:06):
it kind of fed the fire right there. It turned
out there was a grain of truth to some of
the allegations or some of the suspicions and rumors. According
to Dr Sharon Law And this stuff, benzophenone is the
worst offender in causing contact dermatitis. It can also induce anaphylaxis,

(45:30):
and it is classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency
for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World
Health Organization. So people are aware of this. People are
aware of this, including the industry. In twenty nineteen, almost
three thousand different like products, which such a vague term,

(45:52):
but three thousand like you know, uh, kinds of shampoo,
kinds of sunscreen, kinds of I'm guessing here, what what's
another skin thing? Moisturizer? Is that okay? Okay? Is a
real popular one. It's really apparently quite important to moisturize
every day. I don't do it every day, but I
try to get to it when I remember. Um, but yeah,

(46:15):
I know it's true. So there's another thing that happened,
which was the you know, these stories pop up with like, uh,
you've heard about it before, rat feces and cereal, right,
And I don't know if you guys remember that when
there was a long time story where people would say, actually,
the FDA allows a certain amount of rat features and

(46:36):
in cereal, there's only so much you can do. You
can't you can't ever have zero percent rat proop cereal.
It's like the idea of of a Grade E meat
at Taco Bell containing some percentage of rat meat or
something like that, exactly, the idea being that it's legal.
But it's a loophole that a lot of people don't
know about. Like clear like someone in the industry is saying, okay, alright,

(46:58):
uncle Sam. Clearly, if there was anyone able to make
cereal with zero percent rat feces, they would they would
put that on the front of the box, right, would
be like right next to the raisin brand. There's the
no rat poop. What am I gonna do? Get all
the rats out of here? Come on, we were a

(47:21):
cereal company, not an exterminator service. Sir uh. I'm just
thinking like, there's is that? What kind of integration? What
kind of what? What kind of integration is that where
you say, you know, we started off making cereal, add
all this rat poop in it, and we were like,

(47:41):
is this afiza? Is this a bug? Long story short,
We killed the rats, sold the meat to Taco Bell,
we kept the poop. We got two scoops of it
Raisin brand, apparently by Bernie Sanders. But I come to
you once more to tell you that definitely three scoops

(48:03):
of raisins in every box. So three scoops, they went up,
huh is it only two? Well that third scoop is
rat poop. So so this we are um hopefully joking,
but it is it is true that something similar has
happened with the sunscreen industry. The French Federation of Beauty Enterprises,

(48:27):
an industry organization, a trade organization, responded to this study
and they basically said, yeah, we know we we know
that this octocry line is in here. We know that
it turns into this dangerous chemical. But look at the study,
they said, these are always below the toxicity thresholds that

(48:50):
are safe for human health, which is a lot like saying,
you know, you can eat a couple of spiders in
your oak meal. You can have a little that are rap.
You can have a little bit of rap hoop as
a treat. Well. Even indeed, even like you know, in
um in in regulation of fisheries, you know, and and wildlife,

(49:12):
uh and and certain allowable amounts of pollution and water
like there are mercury warnings you know, for certain bodies
of water because it absorbs into the fish. But there
also is an allowable level of mercury um which seems
like it would be zero, but it's not zero. But
also we are talking like you know, parts per million
or billion in some cases. So you know, and there

(49:34):
is truth to this, even as as squeamish as it
sounds to say toxicity thresholds or the idea of things
that are acceptable for human health. Uh, it certainly makes
you cringe, but I mean it's not untrue, right right, yeah,
I mean you're you're talking about something happening at scale,
you know what I mean? How how how can any

(49:55):
organization keep its eye on every falling sparrow of a
content eminent. It's it's quite difficult. But in this case,
uh toxicity levels or thresholds aside like the the reason
that this trade organization responded by pointing out these thresholds

(50:16):
and saying, yeah, this stuff is dangerous, but it's not
dangerous in the amounts that are found by the study.
It's because it is virtually impossible to regulate a bunch
of these things effectively. But in this case, there's there's
like clearly one that clearly transforms into this other thing,

(50:42):
and no one's saying change the recipe. What they're saying
is it's okay because there's not a there's not enough
of it there, which is like saying, hey, um, at
this point, the rat poop is is part of the serial,
you know what I mean, it's part of the ingredients here.
What we're gonna take it out? That would destroy raisin bran.

(51:06):
We're gonna get a letter from raisin brand Well, it's
still my favorite cereal. So no matter how much poop
is in there, are you kidding as you eat grape
nuts too? Old man? I don't like grape nuts. Oh god, uh, sorry,
grape nuts. I just don't know. I'm not into it.
But raisin brand specifically, I think it's raising crunchy raisin

(51:26):
brand or whatever it is. Does it have the clusters
you like the one with the nut clusters? Dude, I
just dis Yeah, they're useless. They're the lich Kys of grapes. Now.
I like it crazing. I do like it crazing, which

(51:48):
is essentially the same process Betton, But for some reason,
to raisin just doesn't do it for me. Don't like
our oatmeal raisin cookie. Like an oatmeal cookie, take the rate,
put the raisins in there, entirely different cookie, different ants. Yeah, yeah,
oatmeal raisin. Sorry, sorry, we're raisin shaming you, man. I
feel like we're ganging up. Like no, it's more, it's
more reasons for you man. Thank you guys. We can

(52:10):
have that. Oatmeal raisin really is my favorite cookie, that's
why are you serious? I feel like I'm not a
big cookie person, but anytime I see a cookie that
I assume is chocolate chip and it turns out it's
like oatmeal raisin, I feel swindled. As I feel like

(52:32):
the motto for it's like oatmeal raisin. This is settling,
you know what I mean. It's Look, my grandfather used
to make me cinnamon raisin toast all the time when
I would go visit him, and I have such a
special place in my heart for that. I then developed
a psychological connection to raisins and cinnamon. That's where my

(52:56):
meal raisin thing, and even my raisin brand it all
just goes. It's all in the well, Matt. It's so like, look, yeah,
there's there's no shaming here. I just if now that
I know this, I am going to be like much
more um cognizant of where raisins and oatmeal raisin cookies

(53:18):
should go. Like, check your desk later, because anytime I
get one of these, it's going straight to you. Man,
That's the best I can do. Like also, the sense
we're going somewhere with this, folks. The sense of taste
and preference for what you eat is inherently tied into memory.

(53:39):
It's and tied into smell, it's tied into texture. Many
like smell actually much more so than taste. That that
brings your memories. That's why we have such um visceral
reactions to concepts of food. That's also why this higher

(54:00):
time you were hearing this episode, some part of you
was smelling sunscreen, which is weird. That's like Morgan Freeman saying,
you read this whole thing in my voice. Uh well,
so man, when you say smelling sunscreen, I mean you know,
surely there there are scents and perfumes that are added
to some sunscreens, but there is that quintessential sunscreen smell.

(54:22):
Is that the chemicals that were smelling that really make
it have that distinct kind of like nostalgic quality. Um.
And then you've got ones that smell like coconut, but
they still have that certain little twinge of a chemical smells.
It's that cocoa butter and coconut oil. Man, You're right,
that's what it is. See original the red vent vent set.

(54:43):
Get that. Yeah, that's it. It's true. Um, there there
is this nostalgic factor. There is a sense memory, and
part of that. Part of the reason that healing is
ubiquitous is because sunscreen does work, and it's because people

(55:06):
do need to use it or use something like it.
You know what I mean. Sunscreen The concept of sunscreen
is what I would call a non human invention, by
which I mean before human beings became what are called
human beings today. There were other animals who figured this

(55:27):
out right. They said, we need to protect ourselves from
the sun, will roll in the mud, will go under
the water, etcetera, etcetera. This is an ancient thing and
it's a thing that many creatures on Earth need. But
there is also an industry that is possibly creating other
problems by fixing the one that's focused on. And so,

(55:50):
as we said, the burden falls on the consumer. The
best thing you can do is read the label carefully.
I know it's cool to meet Matthew McConaughey when he
bides buying cargo shorts and float ees uh and then
maybe clowns you. And I know it's awkward to be
on your phone for ten minutes, ten fifteen minutes in

(56:11):
front of the sunscreen aisle, but maybe it's worth the time.
It is. Indeed, well said I did want to point
out one thing, just because I referenced it jokingly at
the top of the show, saying, I my sunscreen of
choice would be the one that has the most aluminum
in it. That that is a thing. Um there There
was a study at Keele University in Stratfordshire back in
two thousand seven, UM, where they took six samples of

(56:35):
six different brands of sun uh screen and and found
pretty alarming levels of aluminum in them. Um. The World
Health Organization recommends applying thirty five million leaders of sunscreen
to get you know, the actual benefit of it, and
then also reapplying it UH and and according to the study,
for these particular brands UH, it would essentially amount to

(56:59):
putting two hundred milligrams of aluminum on your skin. And
aluminum salts are permeable. Um. You know, they can be
absorbed by the skin and potentially you know, it's not
like a sure thing cancer cause her, but it's it's
certainly not good for you. Um. This was back in
two thousand seven, though, so surely there's been some movement,
as I know, there was also like I think certain

(57:21):
any purse prints definitely have some chemicals that people are
freaked out by because you know, there's certain people that
want to use the ones that like really don't work
because they don't have the bad stuff in them. Um,
but they're still like the ones that are like white
and you know, completely dry out your armpit. Sorry for
that image there but I just wanted to mention that
because the aluminum thing I said at the top of
the show, that that was not just something I made up.

(57:44):
And yeah, as you said, but it is is on
It's on us so to figure it out unless you
live in a state like Hawaii, that straight up bandit
because you know. They pointed to older and newer studies
and even studies that have yet to be published on
some of these chemicals that we discussed today and in
what could be happening They've even they even mentioned disrupting

(58:08):
human hormones, right, Yeah, an endycrine disruptor. And and there's
good news. Another study that I came across from the
American Institute of Physics UH talks about how UM toxicity
screenings of these types of products has gotten much much
much better and easier using something called micro fluid i devices,

(58:28):
and the summary for the study UM says scientists are
using nanoparticle screening on personal care products and finding previously
thought toxic chemicals may not be harmful. Reasearchers discussed their
work successfully using microchips um to demonstrate titanium dioxide, a
chemical found in most sunscreens, not only is non toxic
but also offers protection against ultra violet damage to skin cells.

(58:51):
So I would like to recommend for anybody who wants
to read more in depth, read the study that we've
referenced regarding sunscreen in this the episode where we ruin sunscreen.
Go to the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology and you
will find it under the quite dry title Benzo fhinone

(59:12):
accumulates over time from the degradation of octocry l N
in commercial sunscreen products. Sexy title. Yep, yep, it's right
up there with It's it's right up there with Faulkner.
I am sure historians will agree. What do you think
should be done? Folks? What do you think can be done?

(59:33):
Other than as I said before, I do want to
leave you with that image of taking the time in
front of the sunscreen island. I don't want that to
be lost because it is important. At some point in
every human beings life, your health becomes the primary concern. Now,
it can be a concern that you are proactive about,

(59:57):
it can be a concern when something goes wrong, but
at some point, no matter who you are, no matter
what you do, you will place your health as a
number one priority. So maybe that ten minutes is worth
it that that that's my proposition there, and you know
that doesn't just go for sunscreen. But is there is

(01:00:20):
there a solution that companies could do for this? Is
there a way, first to Parker's note, is there a
way to guarantee the SPF on the on the label
is honest? Is there a way to properly avoid dangerous chemicals?
And and just as importantly, to figure out the facts
versus the fiction in allegations of harmful chemicals, because we

(01:00:43):
remember until twenty one, a lot of the a lot
of the warnings about sunscreen, we're misinformation. They were misinformed.
At the very least, let us know. We want to
hear from you. You are the most important part of
the show. We try to make it easy to find
us online. That's right. You can find us on Facebook

(01:01:05):
and Twitter where we are conspiracy stuff. On Instagram we
are conspiracy stuff show. On YouTube, we are conspiracy stuff. Hey.
And if you like hanging out on YouTube and you're
interested in this topic, check out I think it's med
Oh gosh, is it med school Insiders? Yeah? Med School Insiders.
They've got some great content about sunscreen and studies and

(01:01:26):
how to read that stuff. There's also some great stuff
out of veritassium and a couple other places where you
can actually watch u V cameras looking at a human
while sunscreen is being applied, and it's super fascinating to
watch those higher SPF levels. Uh just what you what
it's actually absorbing when it comes to the light. Check

(01:01:48):
that stuff out for sure, and you know, subscribe to
conspiracy stuff if you get a chance. UM. If you
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(01:02:10):
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of that quite greases you up, there is one way
you can always contact us. Uh. Oh, grease is up.

(01:02:34):
Isn't our best way. But Matt, I'm just thinking of
you as a as a kid being pulled away from
the shore. Uh. If none of that he was hard, hard,
he was hard to grab though he's so hard to
pull away because he's so slips. He just he just
slides right out of your hand like a bar of soap.
So so if none of that quite slips and slides

(01:02:54):
for you. As a way to contact us, there is
one way that we always recommend, no matter where you are,
no matter which beach or surf store you prefer, you
can send us a good old fashioned email where we
are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they

(01:03:29):
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