If you think that anything off the shelf with the letters SPF on the front will protect you from sunburn and skin cancer, you may be dangerously wrong.

If you think that the FDA or any other government agency is doing rigorous scientific testing of sunscreens on the market to make sure that they are safe and effective, again, the data may not support that hypothesis.

The Environmental Working Group’s study of 1,097 sunscreens found only 15% to be both safe and effective.  Their gripes: many active ingredients in sunscreen either degrade in sunlight, or are themselves known or suspected carcinogens.   They also found that of “high-SPF” sunscreens, advertising an SPF of 30 or higher, only 7% protect against UVA rays.  EWG didn’t do experimental testing of the susncreen ingredients, but what they did do was read published, peer-reviewed research on various ingredients in sunscreens, and cross-reference ingredient lists against their research.

You can go to their web site, and look up your favorite sunscreen or their list of recommended safe-and-effective sunscreens.  For each sunscreen that they list, they go through the ingredients and provide citations to various studies on each ingredient.

Because this research activity appears not to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, I looked to see if I could find some intelligent criticism of their work, or something to suggest that they are wrong.  The best I found was from the industry, saying that they “obviously have a very low-level understanding of how sunscreen works.”  The industry comment did not elaborate any further or make any attempt to rebut EWG’s claims.  Then again, no scientific argument can hold a candle to calling your adversary stupid.  One thing the industry seems to be right about: this doesn’t mean you should stop using sunscreen.  It just means you should be a smarter consumer and not rely on the government to protect you.

I’m not a dermatologist or a chemist. I can read the language in these studies, but I’m not really qualified to evaluate the quality of the science.  My only concluding thought is this: most of the sunscreens in issue are synthetic chemical compounds, made in a lab, that I am asked to put in direct contact with my flesh in fairly high concentrations.  When a serious question is raised about their safety and effectiveness, I put the burden of persuasion on those who tell me that it’s safe.  Until such time as they meet that burden, I’m going to use one of the products that *everybody* agrees are safe and effective.

Please allow me to address some common arguments from opponents of Question 2.  None of these are “straw” arguments that I made up just to tear them down, they come from the statement of the President of the MA district attorneys association here [MA sec of state's webpage].

• Question 2 is an endorsement of substance abuse
  Substance “abuse” is a level of use that compromises the user’s physical and mental health, or the welfare of others.  While it is true that any use has some incremental health effect, to conclude that all marijuana use is abuse would require you to conclude that having a glass of wine with dinner or a cup of coffee with breakfast is “abuse” of alcohol or caffeine, respectively.
• MA law already requires judges to seal the records of first-time offenders
  A sealed record is not the same as a non-record.  Records are sealed, rather than destroyed, because they are still accessible to DAs, probation officers, judges, and some others in the future.  For example, when applying to law school or applying to sit for the bar, one is often required to disclose sealed convictions.  Under existing law, a bar applicant who has a first-offense possession conviction would have to disclose that fact to the Bar Examiners.  Under Question 2, the violation would never be entered in the criminal record database, and would not be a “conviction” that the applicant would have to disclose.

  Furthermore, some casual users get caught more than once.  Even under the current law, a person who is caught with a joint for a second time will have a wide-open criminal record.

• “Decriminalization emboldens and enables drug dealers”

  Question 2 would maintain the current criminal penalties for distribution or possession with intent to distribute.  No free passes for dealers here.

• 40% of criminal arrestees test positive for marijuana

  Without inquiring into the accuracy of that figure, I bet a similar number of non-arrestees would test positive too.  And let’s not forget, many of those people were arrested for possession and use of marijuana.  In order to have a truly useful and persuasive number, you would have to show that marijuana users are actually more likely to commit non-marijuana crimes than non-marijuana users.  That’s an inference the DAs would like you to make from the 40% number, but it’s wholly unscientific.

  Let me put it another way: how many criminal arrestees test positive for oxygen?  100%!  Let’s ban oxygen!

• Marijuana use “is a primary factor in juvenile hospital admissions”

  What on earth does that even mean?  What’s a primary factor?  This isn’t data, it’s propaganda.

First, I provide a link to the text of 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(c)(2) (2008), for your reference.  This is a Congressional law, passed by the House and Senate and signed by the President.  Only that process can change it–any HHS reg that purported to change it would be void.

• RHRC: HHS Secretary Leavitt “admitted that it could be read to include contraception in the definition of abortion.”

  BorealNemeton: This allegation is based on a WSJ article that RHRC links from their blog.  In that article, Leavitt admits that some anti-choice groups would try to say that contraception is abortion.  He doesn’t say that’s a fair reading of the reg, and it’s not.  The fact that Pharmacists for Life says they’ll do just that… is entirely irrelevant.  Pharmacists for Life is not a lawgiver, nor a dictionary.  I don’t care if they say abortion means the baking of cookies, it’s just not true!

• RHRC: The rule would allow legal challenges to state laws that require pharmacists to either dispense contraceptives or make referrals to pharmacists who will.

  BorealNemeton: This refers to a provision in the proposed rule that defines “assist in the performance of” (as used in the statute) to include counseling and referrals.  These challenges were open  under the statute, without a reg, but here’s how the reg helps.  Using the “Chevron Two-Step,” if a court finds that the statute is unclear about whether “assisting” includes giving referrals, they defer to the agency’s reasonable interpretation.  Still, a court could find that there’s no ambiguity at all, and the answer is no.  Or, without this reg being around, the court could find that the statute does mean that.

  Even if these state laws are struck down, the states have an easy solution: the state itself could easily provide a web directory of pharmacists who want the business.  Problem solved.  Still, this is the biggest problem with the proposed reg.  If you want to write a comment that will be helpful to HHS, I’d target this piece.

• RHRC: Although the rule mostly refers to abortions and sterilizations, once section refers to “health service program[s] or research activit[ies].”  “This is an exception you could drive a truck through.”

  BorealNemeton: It’s not an exception.  It doesn’t broaden existing law.  §300a-7(c)(2), cited above, is not limited to abortions and sterilizations, but refers to “lawful health service programs.”

• RHRC: Existing law only protects doctors and nurses with religious objections; this reg would protect all employees, whether their objections are religious or simply moral.

  Borealnemeton: Existing law protects all employees, whether their moral objectsions are based in religion or not.  And as a person who has a much better-developed sense of ethics than sense of religion, I see that as a good thing.

• RHRC: To the extent that it doesn’t change existing law, this reg is unnecessary.

  Borealnemeton: Well, there’s some truth to that.  Clarification and guidance are useful, but not necessary.  You know what else is unnecessary?  Mobilizing the feminist and progressive armies for something that is merely ‘unnecessary.’  This is why I’m spending so much time on this issue and reading and writing so much about it: because so far as I can tell, it’s just a massive cry-wolf by a bunch of groups whose calls-to-action I will be less willing to trust in the future.

Below is the reply that I posted to a friend’s call to action on her livejournal–giving some background, then explaining why I think this is all overblown, and the HHS proposal is no big deal. If you disagree, please comment and explain why.

Here’s what the proposal would do, if enacted:

A set of laws dating back to 1970 provide that no recipient of federal funds may discriminate against health care providers for their refusal to provide or participate in providing services that they have a personal moral objection to. That would include Jehova’s Witnesses doing blood transfusions, and potentially catholics writing birth control prescriptions. That much is not new, and not changing.

Recently, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology proposed a rule that no OB-GYN could be certified as “competent” unless they demonstrated a competence at performing abortions. This made HHS mad. And I think, rightly so. If all you want to do is deliver babies, and you think abortions are wrong, you shouldn’t be forced to choose between doing abortions and not being able to deliver babies.

So the new regulation:

* Defines “health care provider” to include any employee of an organization that provides health care services.

* Defines “assist in performing” (objectionable services) to include any form of assistance–and gives the example of an employee whose job is to sterlize surgical instruments but objects to sterilizing instruments used in abortions.

* Requires recipients of federal funds (hospitals, clinics, etc) to say that they are complying with the law

* DOES NOT make any reference to birth control, define abortion, or redefine birth control as abortion. Rumors that the regulation did so were based on an early draft that got leaked, but was never made official (even as a proposal, let alone a final rule)

I have a copy of the proposed language that I will happily forward to anybody who wants it, or you can download it from Regulations.gov

Don’t let the 47 pages deter you from reading this proposed regulation. The first 21 are background, the next nine are “impact analysis” (you don’t need to read this), and the final twelve are the actual proposed regulation–which pretty much does what the summary in the first twenty pages says it does.

And now for my own opinion: this is just not as big a deal as it’s been made out to be. And I take issue with the description of it as “far-reaching:” it’s not changing a whole lot. As far as abortion is concerned, the doctor’s right not to perform them if s/he doesn’t want to is almost forty years old, and this regulation does not change that. It doesn’t really change anything with respect to birth control either. The ACLU says that it “leaves open” the possibility that doctors could refuse to write birth control scripts, and that’s true–because the laws that create that possibility were passed by Congress, and HHS does not have the power to undo them.

Don’t get me wrong–I think the idea of a physician prescribing “hope, rhythm, and prayer” to a patient who wants not to have babies is morally repulsive, and I think any woman who gets that kind of advice from her doctor should slap him in the face and never go back. (Kicking in the balls, if applicable, may seem attractive, but is probably more likely to lead to legal trouble for the patient). That said, I’m not sure how the right to control one’s own body includes a right to assistance from the body of another, when that other finds the purpose or means of control morally repulsive. I suppose that’s a lawyerly way of saying that my right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins, or where I need your help to swing it and you don’t want to.

That said, all the hoopla and public-commenting do have value, insofar as they say to HHS: “we’re watching you. Please don’t try any funny business.”