Author Reveals Sunscreen Companies Blocked Better UV Protection for Decades

What was said

"US sunscreens are a generation behind everyone else because in the US sunscreens are regulated as over-the-counter drugs. Everywhere else, they're just cosmetics, so you can use kind of whatever you want with more minimal safety testing. So the companies wanted to use this stuff in the US forever, but the FDA said, sure, just do the testing, but they didn't want to do it was too expensive to do the testing."

Rowan Jacobsen explained that American sunscreens have been 30 years behind European and Asian formulations due to FDA drug classification requiring expensive animal testing. Companies refused to invest in safety studies despite superior ingredients being available globally. The FDA only approved a new ingredient, Bemotrizanol, in June 2024.