
Hawaii moves to ban sale of sunscreens with coral-harming chemicals - DoreenMichele
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hawaii-moves-to-ban-sale-of-sunscreens-with-coral-harming-chemicals/
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coin
> according to the Environmental Working Group

It's unfortunate that they are giving credence to EWG as it damages the
credibility of the article. EWG amounts to an anti-science pro-organic
industry group that uses pseudoscience to push their agenda.

[https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/25/dear-ewg-why-real-
scien...](https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/25/dear-ewg-why-real-scientists-
think-poorly-you-11323)

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spraak
Being anti-organic seems so weird to me. What is the reason?

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adrianN
I'm not anti-organic, but there are a couple of good arguments against organic
food. First the end product is pretty much identical nutrition-wise. Second,
organic produce requires more land, so it's unclear whether that scales to
feed all people. And third, many "organic" pesticides are not shown to be
better for the environment than the non-organic alternatives.

Personally I think we could achieve more by picking up some ideas from organic
farming (e.g. more diversity to combat pests, better preservation of the soil)
without demonizing all advances in agriculture like improved fertilizers or
GMOs.

~~~
UrukParthian
The problem with GMOs is that you can skip to dangerous islands of viability
that would be impossible with standard breeding.

At least that's my understanding of Taleb's argument against GMOs.

~~~
adrianN
Imho the problem with GMO is patents on gene sequences.

I don't see how altering plants to produce chemicals is more dangerous than
introducing new chemicals produced in a lab. We do the latter all the time,
most chemicals we use in industrial processes are basically untested for
safety (e.g. look at all the additives in plastics or textiles). GMOs can help
reduce the need to pesticides and fertilizers so their use can help the
environment. But due to overblown fears even completely harmless modifications
like introducing new colors of flowers are treated as if they were literally
the devil [1].

As with all new techniques it's probably good to be careful and test things
for long term adverse effects, but the kneejerk reaction of GMO=dangerous does
more harm than good.

[1] [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/how-transgenic-
petun...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/how-transgenic-petunia-
carnage-2017-began)

~~~
tomp
This sounds like a good argument _agains_ new untested chemicals, not an
argument _for_ GMOs.

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jerrysievert
in addition to the sale, it seems like it would make sense to ban the
importation of sunscreen with tourists in their luggage. Hawaii's a frequent
vacation spot for me, and I always pack my own (high spf) sunscreen. I can
never find sunscreen when visiting that works well with my skin.

if they can't ban the luggage-packed sunscreen, perhaps an information
campaign. if I know what not to bring, I'll tend to make sure I don't, and I'm
not alone.

~~~
ravenstine
I don't understand why people bring easily acquired items like sunscreen in
their luggage. Unless you're going somewhere that doesn't have a Walgreens or
a Rite-Aid, I see no reason to haul around sunscreen, shampoo, toothpaste,
deodorant, mouthwash, contact lens fluid, etc., to get stopped by the TSA
multiple times and have to throw it out anyway because it exploded because of
the pressure difference.

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megaremote
So you arrive somewhere on a holiday, and rather than getting out and seeing
the sites, you go shopping at a grocery store? And you are confused why
everyone doesn't do the same? That is such a strange question to me.

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ravenstine
Yeah, it takes about 12 minutes and the extra $12 spent is worth not having to
haul those things around. I prefer carrying as little with me as possible.
Plus, the grocery store has gummy worms.

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BoorishBears
You must only go to boring places if you can always get those extra things
easily ;)

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Groxx
Along related lines: zinc-based sunblock has gotten a lot nicer to use in
recent years. Worth checking out as an alternative.

~~~
adrr
Transparent zinc sunblock utilizes nano zinc particles which are toxic.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3781714/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3781714/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26531873](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26531873)

~~~
pombrand
..and as the first paper says, ZnO nanoparticles are NOT toxic if silica
coated, so devil is in the details here. It should also be noted that no in
vivo toxicity has been demonstrated from non-coated nanoparticles, although
there's a theoretical potential for it.

In the second study ZnO nanoparticles were injected DIRECTLY INTO THE BLOOD of
rats with no control for non-nano particles. Crazy they even got it published.

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beenBoutIT
"In humans OMC(octinoxate) exposure has minor, but statistically significant
effects on the levels of testosterone and estradiol [19]. Moreover, some
studies suggested that OMC can interact with the hypothalamo-pituitary-thyroid
(HPT) axis [63]."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615097/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615097/)
[19][https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15191542](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15191542)
[63][https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15458794](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15458794)

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random_user456
This is horrible "feel good" legislation that relies on bad science, and
doesn't address any of the major root causes of coral degradation, such as
agricultural and industrial run off, ocean temperature, and acidity etc. One
can easily disprove these studies with even basic high school concepts such as
density, and at what level is something a poison. The idea that sunscreen
diluted in the ocean at levels approaching a couple parts per trillion is
toxic is laughable. One can easily think of a myriad of ways to test and
disprove this hypothesis. The people of Hawaii should be ashamed of their
political leadership and inept legislation without addressing true root cause.

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random_user456
i am highly skeptical of the science of this, let alone the fact that the
ocean massively dilutes, a very small amount of sunblock off of people.

~~~
dagw
Here's the relevant paper:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00244-015-0227-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00244-015-0227-7)

Short summary is that beaches where sunblock is used a lot show much higher
concentrations of the relevant chemical compared to beaches where sunscreen is
less common or beaches that saw fewer swimmers, and that heightened levels of
these chemicals can be observed up to 600 meters out from these beaches. The
observed correlation between high concentrations of these chemicals in the
water and the lack of coral growths is very strong.

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adrianN
How much will this actually do for the corals? As far as I know they're
effectively doomed due to warming waters and changing pH thanks to all the
carbon dioxide we're pumping out.

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overcyn
And no point in reducing co2 output because the corals are doomed due to
chemicals in sunscreen.

~~~
adrianN
No point in reducing CO2 output for the corals because any changes we make now
will take effect too slowly to save them.

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Biba
Why anyone except babies need sunscreen?

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nkrisc
To help prevent sunburn and decrease risk of skin cancer. I've seen people who
spend lots of time in the sun without any kind of protection. It's not
something I hope to achieve.

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sunstone
And then replaces them with human harming chemicals.

