Good Health Tip from our own Dr. Bronin

Burn notice: New sunscreen regulations designed to protect you
Labels must now specify UVB and UVA protection

Written by Grant Rindner for LoHud.com

HARRISON — With temperatures reaching above 90 degrees and the sun burning bright above the Ron Belmont Pool Complex, Neil Brower made sure that his son, Austin, was properly protected with sunscreen.

“I don’t think the public is educated enough,” says Brower about protection from the sun.

Now, thanks to new federal regulations on sunscreen labeling, poolgoers like Brower, of West Harrison, and his family will be more aware about how much protection they’re actually getting.

For decades, many consumers using sunscreen were unaware whether or not their sunscreen protected them from both forms of sun radiation; the one that causes sunburn (UVB) and the one that causes cancer (UVA). However, a new law requires that sunscreen bottles acknowledge whether or not they protect against both forms of radiation.

In the past, federal guidelines only mandated that labels provide information on whether or not sunscreens protected against UVB.

The law, which went into effect in December, requires that sunscreen manufacturers identify whether or not their products defend against both UVA and UVB rays, with products that sufficiently protect against both being labeled “broad spectrum.”

U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, who spearheaded the new regulations with her Sunscreen Consumer Right to Know Act in 2007, touted the change in labeling Monday alongside Rye Brook dermatologist and Yale professor Andrew Bronin and Jean Halloran, a product safety expert from Consumers Union.

The SPF number on sunscreen bottles is only a reflection on the product’s protection against UVB rays, not UVA.

The new mandate will also stop companies from using broad, unquantifiable terms like waterproof or sweatproof, Bronin said.

Harrison resident Dorothy Hickson, who was at the pool with her daughter and granddaughter, said she believes that new indications on labels would change the way people purchased sunscreen. The sunscreen Hickson and her family were using was labeled broad spectrum.

In a press release, Lowey said “I am glad that the foot dragging is over,” in reference to a six-month delay on the labeling change instituted by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2012. The delay was a response to sunscreen makers claiming they would have difficulty meeting the original 12-month deadline proposed when the regulations were finalized in June 2011.