Sunscreen
There’s a steaming pile of rubbish out there about health. There’s plenty of money to be made from offering too-good-to-be-true remedies.
Yesterday I was writing a couple of news stories about ways in which people get bamboozled by health-related information and then I started firing up a Punch piece on them. Then I realised I’d written it all before. Bullshit is everywhere, and it’s a billion-dollar industry and people want magic pills.
So rather than repeat myself I thought I’d just list five of the stories that have crossed my desk recently and made me want to tear out my hair and run screaming into the street. And if you know of others, let me know. It’s not that we ever run short of subjects for The Punch’s regular I Call Bullshit column, but there’s a sadistic pleasure in seeing that particular cup runneth over.
Continue reading "Five dumb health mistakes even smart people make" »
Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, an irregular regular column on calumny and codswallop. This week we’re looking at why so many Australians are choosing the risk of melanoma over the risk of… something ill defined.
According to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education there’s a proportion of people who – because they’ve heard about concerns over the use of nanoparticles in sunscreen – think it’s safer not to use it at all.
To stop people getting the 80s ‘zinc’ look, some sunscreen manufacturers break the zinc particles down into nanoparticles, or teeny tiny bits. See here for a much more erudite explanation.
Continue reading "ICB: If I could offer you only one tip for the future…" »
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marley says:
@badrinath - can’t argue with you there. There’s a lot of “common knowledge” out there that isn’t knowledge at all, a lot of dodgy science, and a lot of marketing. My bugbear is the “natural products” industry touting the dangers of science while that claiming its own products, never tested… Read more »
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Badrinath says:
Fair call Marley, I was missing that point, if the suggestion is to tell people which sunscreens don’t have nano-particles so that those who wish to be cautious can do so without risk - fantastic. The same I guess for other innovations that irk some people such as GM and… Read more »
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