Federal regulators have not approved a new ultraviolet ray filter for sunscreens in more than two decades. Now, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wants the Food and Drug Administration to move quickly to approve newer ingredients that countries in Europe and Asia have already greenlit.
“The United States Congress, for once, actually has acted to empower the FDA to approve more of the ingredients that can help protect us,” said Blumenthal, a Democrat. “The FDA is leaving Americans unnecessarily unprotected against the most severe kind of cancer and the most common melanoma.”
Some of the newer ingredients, which have been used in sunscreens overseas for more than 20 years, are more effective against rays linked to skin cancer, he said.
Blumenthal said the FDA could do more to protect Americans’ health by accelerating the effort to approve newer ingredients that filter UV rays in order to offer more protection from the sun.
“The FDA says that they need more data from the companies in this country, but that excuse fails utterly to justify these delays because the FDA could order the companies to provide the data,” Blumenthal said. “It has simply been on the sidelines.”
Blumenthal sent a letter to the FDA demanding they move quickly to approve newer UV filters while also completing testing. He gave the agency until July 26 to respond.
In an email to KFF Health News, the FDA recently defended how it reviews sunscreens, saying that Americans “rely on sunscreens as a key part of their skin cancer prevention strategy, which makes satisfactory evidence of both safety and effectiveness of these products critical for public health."
