Editorial: Be careful out there

Saturday, July 14, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.

I ncreasingly in recent years, especially here in the desert, people have a greater awareness of the need to protect themselves from the sun's harmful rays that can cause irreparable skin damage and cancer.

Nonetheless, as a recent story in The New York Times points out, consumers don't have authoritative information as to which sunscreens offer the best protection. In fact, the Times notes, Consumer Reports and the nonprofit Environmental Working Group have come out with new studies that show a wide range of products don't offer adequate protection.

Part of the problem, according to dermatologists who spoke to the Times, is that there isn't a uniform protection standard.

For instance, Dr. Vincent A. DeLeo, chairman of dermatology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, says typically it should take 2 ounces of sunscreen to sufficiently cover your entire body. "But for most people an 8 ounce bottle lasts the whole summer," DeLeo said.

Consumers also shouldn't think that just because a company places a seal on its packaging from a nonprofit group, such as the American Cancer Society or the Skin Cancer Foundation, that its product offers superior protection. Companies pay these organizations to use their seals, so it's not as if it is an unbiased assurance about the product's reliability.

The trade group representing the sunscreen companies told the Times that the directions on their products sufficiently explain the coverage required. Still, the Food and Drug Administration is working on new labeling regulations, something we believe is long overdue.

Even if regulations are adopted requiring more informative labels for consumers, it could take at least another couple of years to implement a reliable standard. Dr. James M. Spencer, a dermatologist in Florida, told the Times that regulations should spell out exactly how much protection sunscreens offer, the amount required to provide genuine protection and precisely how often a sunscreen should be reapplied.

Until better regulations are adopted, we'll all just have to do a better job of covering up, including using wide-brim hats, avoiding the sun as much as possible during the time of day when it's most intense and putting on a healthy dose of sunscreen when we venture outside.