National Cancer Institute admits that there is no evidence that avoiding sunlight or sunbeds decreases the risk of skin cancer

https://smarttan.com/blog/index.php/nci-admits-sun-scare-lacks-proof-2/

NCI Admits ‘Sun Scare’ Lacks Proof


Tuesday, March 22, 2011
posted in: Headline Story

The U.S. National Cancer Institute — in bold type on an a section added to its web site in June 2010 — admits that there is no evidence that avoiding sunlight or sunbeds actually decreases the risk of skin cancer.

“It is not known if protecting skin from sunlight and other UV radiation decreases the risk of skin cancer,” the NCI writes in an advisory titled “Skin Cancer Prevention.” The article continues, “Sunscreen may help decrease the amount of UV radiation to the skin. One study found that wearing sunscreen can help prevent actinic keratoses, scaly patches of skin that may become squamous cell carcinoma. However, the use of sunscreen has not been proven to lower the risk of melanoma skin cancer.”



The NCI couches its recommendations about sun exposure and UV light with the words “may” and “suggest” — showing that the agency and others continue to blur the line in public health recommendations, encouraging people to avoid UV and mid-day sun even though they do not have cause-and-effect evidence to say that UV “will” cause skin cancer.



“Being exposed to ultraviolet radiation is a risk factor that may increase the risk of skin cancer,” the agency writes in the same advisory. “Studies suggest that being exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation and the sensitivity of a person’s skin to UV radiation are risk factors for skin cancer.”



What’s it mean?



“The difference between advising people to avoid sunburn based on what studies suggest and blurring the line to still make it appear that any and all UV exposure is harmful — when evidence does not support that statement — is the wrong way to approach this” Smart Tan Vice President Joseph Levy says. “You keep reading items like this from so many agencies and the inferences all seem to point in the same direction, benefiting the $6 billion chemical sunscreen pharmaceutical market. Still, this article is quite clear: Dermatology leaders need to stop saying point blank that avoiding sun will decrease the risk of cancer. The government does not support that claim.”



To read the NCI advisory click here.

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Chicago Tribune: FAIL

https://smarttan.com/blog/index.php/chicago-tribune-needs-to-correct-error/

The Chicago Tribune authored an editorial on Friday slamming indoor tanning but misstated facts in an attempt to dissuade readers from using indoor tanning equipment. “The use of tanning beds by people under age 30 is associated with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer,” the paper wrote. “Researchers cannot explain the rising incidence of the disease for any reason except the increased popularity of indoor tanning over the past two decades.”




In fact, independent researchers HAVE offered several reasons – in peer-reviewed journals – in the past 12 months, bolstering peer-reviewed explanations about melanoma’s complex relationship with UV that have been promoted for more than a decade.



•British dermatology leaders conduced a study of melanoma incidence titled, “Melanoma Epidemic: A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the British Journal of Dermatology last year, showing that the alleged increase in melanoma incidence is, in fact, merely an increase in the diagnosis of thin melanoma lesions without a corresponding increase in diagnosis of thicker lesions or an increase in the mortality rate. Because thick lesions and mortality aren’t increasing, it’s nearly impossible to state that actual melanoma incidence is increasing. This study bolstered a similar paper written at Emory University more than a decade ago about U.S. Melanoma incidence.

•“Overdiagnosis in Cancer” published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute supported the same point — that melanoma overdiagnosis “is simply the detection of pseudo-disease” because doctors are removing more thin lesions today and calling them melanomas, which is falsely inflating incidence numbers. The main point: There is a difference between incidence and reported incidence.

•The government’s own data support these two papers, showing actual increases in melanoma in men over age 50, but not in women under age 50. Dermatology lobbyists have skewed data to make their statements.

•A commentary in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings written by a melanoma researcher right in the Tribune’s back yard — “Melanoma’s Public Message” by Dr. Arthur Rhodes of Chicago — points the fingers at the fact that the vilification of UV as the cause of melanoma is killing older men who don’t tan, who get melanoma but who never get lesions checked out because dermatology’s message about UV is archaic.

On top of that, the Tribune’s main point — that those under 18 should be kept out of sunbed centers — will drive teenagers to unregulated home-garage sunbeds and back to the beaches and blacktops to get overexposed instead of non-burning exposure in regulated sunbed studios. We can supply PLENTY of evidence supporting this contention.



In 20 minutes we could have explained all of this and how dermatology industry lobbying groups have not told the whole story to editorial boards nationwide to the Tribune. But the Tribune elected simply to pen an editorial based on the talking points of anti-UV lobbying groups who are lobbying to provide UV to millions of teens themselves with their own sunbeds for cosmetic skin conditions at $85-$100 a session while making $6 indoor sunbed sessions illegal.



So here’s an open invitation to the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board: We’re willing to sit down with you and show you why your “researchers cannot explain” editorial was wrong and why you will WANT to change your position. We hope you return our call.

Derm’s Own Son ‘D’ Deficient: NBC Report

https://smarttan.com/blog/index.php/derm%e2%80%99s-own-son-%e2%80%98d%e2%80%99-deficient-nbc-report/

A Washington, D.C., dermatologist was unable to identify her 14-year-old son’s severe vitamin D deficiency even after he complained of constant pain, headaches, exhaustion, body aches and stomach pain — classic signs of severe vitamin D deficiency, NBC News-Washington reported in a televised story Tuesday.




“Because Benjamin’s an active tennis player she (his mother) thought he’d just pulled a muscle or strained something,” NBC-Washington reported after talking with Dr. Marilyn Berzin, Benjamin’s mother. She is a Washington, D.C., dermatologist whose web site states she is considered “to be one of Washington, D.C.’s leading cosmetic dermatologists.” The web site encourages people to always apply sunscreen with at least an SPF15 rating.



Based on video images of Berzin and her son — who both appear pale in the story — it is likely they don’t get a lot of sun.



It was the stomach pain that got Dr. Berzin to take her son to a pediatrician, NBC reported. “Doctors tested him for everything from arthritis to muscular dystrophy to Lyme disease,” the story reported. The tests ultimately showed he was severely deficient in vitamin D and was put on 50,000-international-unit-weekly supplements for an eight-week period.



“Within about two to three weeks he started feeling a lot better — he grew immediately about two inches,” Dr. Berzin said in the NBC-Washington report.



The story did correctly report that 70 percent of children are believed to be vitamin D deficient, and that kids not getting outdoor sunlight like they used to is most likely the cause. But doctors in the report only recommended 400 IU of vitamin D daily.



While the story did not mention Benjamin’s vitamin D level, it is likely that it was below 10 ng/ml, based on the symptoms he reported and the level of vitamin D prescribed to him. The number of children below 10 ng/ml has increased significantly in the past generation, according to government data — levels so low that childhood rickets, virtually eradicated in the mid-20th century, is making a resurgence. Overzealous sun avoidance is believed to be the cause.



“While the dermatology lobby has been advising people they don’t need to get sun exposure to make vitamin D – even though sun is the natural and intended way to make vitamin D and getting full-body summer sun makes more than 100 times the vitamin D supplemented into a glass of milk — here’s an example of a dermatologist who clearly didn’t know anything about vitamin D deficiency and it was hurting her own family,” Smart Tan Vice President Joseph Levy said. “We are glad that Dr. Berzin and her family are in better health> Hopefully dermatology can learn something from this story.”



To watch the NBC-Washington report click here.

Panel Blasts World Health Organization for Ties To Profiteers

https://smarttan.com/blog/index.php/panel-blasts-who-for-ties-to-profiteers/

An independent medical panel blasted the World Health Organization — the group that prompted worldwide headlines about UV and sunbeds in 2009 by calling sunbeds as dangerous as arsenic and mustard gas — for conflicts of interest among members of its advisory panels that may affect policy decisions, the Associated Press reported this week.




The expert panel — commissioned by WHO to evaluate that group’s widely criticized over-trumping of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu “pandemic” — was referring to WHO experts who had ties to pharmaceutical companies who made millions selling H1N1 vaccine based on WHO’s reports which spread panic about the virus. But the panel’s ruling could also be applied to WHO’s handling of the “sunbed/mustard gas” committee, members of which also had direct and indirect ties to pharmaceutical companies who market chemical sunscreen and to the dermatology industry, which markets all-out sun avoidance to sell its cosmetic services.



“The group described WHO’s definition of a pandemic and its phases as “needlessly complex,” criticized the agency’s decision to keep the members of its advisory committee secret, and said potential conflicts of interest among those experts, some of whom had ties to drug companies, were not well managed,” the Associated Press reported.



WHO staff — who months after the July 2009 “sunbed/mustard gas” story spread worldwide admitted that the evidence against sunbeds was “limited” — are now being criticized for allowing profiteers inroads to help shape WHO policy. The panel, according to AP, “warned that under WHO’s health oversight, the world is not ready to handle a major health disaster in the future.”



WHO has allowed its name to be used to suggest that sunbed centers are linked to higher rates of melanoma in those under age 35, despite the fact that the data in those studies includes home tanning units, medical phototherapy usage of sunbeds under doctors directions and subjects with skin type I who do not tan in sunbed centers. Home units and phototherapy units were associated with higher risk, but professional sunbed centers were not, according to the data the WHO panel studied for under-35 tanners.



To read the AP story click here.

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