Craigus said...
When I was in Hawaii I brought back some SPF 50. I have a friend who just came back from Hawaii with SPF 80, and she said she saw people using SPF 100 over there!!!
Austrralia has the highest incidence of skin cancer, yet we can only buy SPF 30...
WTF?
I did a quick investigation (google) to find out why this is the case. The only explination was that "Australians would only be lured into a false sense of security by higher SPF", and education programs like "slip-slop-slap" are the better option.
The good news is that apparently, we may be allowed to import SPF 50 in 2010.
Until then - Banana Boat gets my vote.
Yeah I think if we started using SPF 50/80/1000, people will think they are fully protected and neglect the other means of protection. In risk management, personal protective equipment (so in this case sunscreen, t-shirts, hats etc.) is the last resort in the risk avoidance control measures hierarchy when you can't avoid/prevent the risk. That is why the government/cancer awareness groups tell you to first don't go out in the sun in the middle of the day. Obviously we can't completely avoid the sun, so that rules out #1 in the hierarchy, but limiting your time in the sun, and not going out at certain times during the day is an effective control measure. Doing these first has a better risk avoidance than PPE alone.
I think kiters are lucky in some way because, in general we catch the afternoon seabreeze, which if later in the afternoon, means we avoid the worst parts of the day.
