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tanning bed

Despite Their Continued Popularity, Tanning Beds Still Increase Your Risk Of Skin Cancer

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It’s long been known that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health and can greatly increase your risk of cancer. The same sentiment has been known about tanning beds, or tanning beds, and their links to an increased risk of skin cancer. 

Despite this knowledge, people still smoke, and people still use tanning beds to get tan, and the data shows they use them more often than one may think. 

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“I assumed commercial sunbeds were becoming déclassé, but a new survey commissioned by tanning brand Vita Liberata for its campaign Not the Way to Glow has shown there’s still a mountain to climb,” wrote Sali Hughes, a resident beauty columnist for the Guardian.

Hughes reported that one in three women living in Great Britain use indoor tanning beds, and of that population 91% say that they understand and acknowledge the risk of exposure to UV radiation, which can increase one’s risk of developing skin cancer; including melanoma which is the most deadly kind. 

In fact, the World Health Organization officially classifies tanning beds as being just as dangerous as asbestos exposure and smoking cigarettes. They reported that those who have used the beds frequently have a 20% greater likelihood of developing melanoma. 

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For individuals who use a tanning bed for the first time before the age of 35, their risk actually increases by 59%, according to the WHO. 

“Commercial sunbeds are deathbeds and their blithe presence in tanning salons on British high streets (there are an estimated 5,500 of them) legitimizes them – especially to young people. 

Despite use of sunbeds having been restricted to over-18s across the UK for 12 years, they’re a big draw on TikTok, with 65.5m views for the #tanningsalon hashtag alone,” Hughes pointed out, emphasizing how social media increased the pressure young people feel to conform to modern beauty standards.

moderna

Moderna And Merck Say New Experimental Vaccine Is Improving Survival Rates In Patients With Severe Skin Cancer 

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Biopharmaceutical company Merck and mRNA vaccine developer Moderna are currently creating a new vaccine to help improve the quality of life and survival rates in individuals dealing with the most deadly form of skin cancer. The vaccine is showing positive results when combined with the therapy treatment known as Keytruda. 

Moderna and Merck will be presenting the current data they’ve collected over the past three years at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago. The newer data showed that around 75% of patients with deadly skin care who took the combination regimen were alive without any signs or symptoms of their cancer returning at the 2.5 year mark. 

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55.6% of patients had the same results when they just received the Keytruda therapy alone. 

“That benefit was observed across different subgroups of patients, regardless of whether they had tumors with a large number of mutations or whether they had enough of a protein — called PD-L1 — that helps keep the body’s immune responses in check,” wrote Annika Constantino for CNBC. 

“The data reflects the potential for the shot to help treat a broad range of melanoma patients,” Dr. Kyle Holen, Moderna’s head of development, therapeutics and oncology, said.

Patients who took the vaccine with Keytruda showed an overall survival rate that hit 96% after 2.5 years, those who just took Keytruda had a rate of 90.2%. 

“Patients with severe forms of the cancer, known as melanoma, who received the combination were 49% less likely to die or have their cancer return than those who took Keytruda alone after roughly three years. The combination also slashed the risk of melanoma spreading to other parts of the body, or death, by 62%,” Constantino wrote. 

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Fatigue, injection site pain, and chills were the most common side effects associated with the vaccine, and the majority of those side effects were mild, according to the data. 

The vaccine uses the same mRNA technology that Moderna utilized for their Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccine is custom-built utilizing the patient’s tumors after surgical removal. The shot is like many other vaccines in that it works to train the immune system to identify and attack specific mutations within cancer cells. 

“Moderna is excited about working to reduce the time between the initial analysis of a tumor and when a patient gets injected with the shot,” CEO Stephane Bancel said in an interview with CNBC.   

“Moderna also plans to file for accelerated approval with the FDA. The process allows for expedited approvals of drugs for serious conditions that fill an unmet medical need,” Bancel said. 

“Melanoma is responsible for the large majority of skin cancer deaths, and the rate of melanoma has increased rapidly over the past few decades” according to the American Cancer Society.

The organization states “about 100,000 people will be diagnosed with melanoma in the U.S. this year and nearly 8,000 people are expected to die from the disease.”

Florida

Florida Might Require Prescription Sunscreen In Order To Save The Coral Reefs

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Florida is battling the constant threat of climate change with a new proposed law that might require a prescription in order for people to buy certain sunscreens.  The law is in a greater effort to protect Florida’s marine life and its dying coral reefs. The “American Great Barrier Reef” is located on the coast of the Florida Keys and is the planet’s third largest coral reef ecosystem. Climbing ocean temperatures have been devastating the reef, causing massive amounts of coral bleaching to occur. Over a third of the reef has already died, causing a decrease in marine life as well. The Florida Aquarium did recently discover a way to regenerate coral pillars in a lab setting, which is an amazing accomplishment that will ultimately help regenerate what was lost. However, as climate change continues to be a problem, the dying reefs will still be in grave danger, Florida legislators are doing everything they can to slow that process until the world catches up and helps the planet, which now includes requiring a prescription to buy sunscreen.

Not all sunscreens would require a prescription, in the proposed bill from Senator Linda Stewart, all sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate, two chemicals found in most sunscreens and are key in protecting against UV radiation. However, they also are being proven to contribute to coral bleaching and thus killing marine life vital to Florida’s ecosystems. The reefs of the world are extremely important to all ecosystems of life, not just the ones living in the reefs themselves.

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According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral reefs are “natural protection for coastlines, absorbing 97% of a wave’s energy to prevent erosion and potential property damage incurred from currents and storms.” In addition, coral reefs hold 25% of all marine life, losing them is losing a quarter of all ocean life, a reality that’s seeming more and more likely every day.  

While sunscreen may not be the main or biggest cause of the destruction of the reefs, it definitely is a major contributing factor. The NOAA reported that the combination of ocean pollution, which sunscreen is technically categorized under, and rising ocean temperatures has already wiped out 30% of the planet’s reefs. The organization also recommends you look for “reef safe” sunscreens, which is just any sunscreen not containing oxybenzone and octinoxate. The proposed bill has already been approved in Hawaii which has so far been acting as the “guinea pig” of this law. Many individuals are concerned for a multitude of reasons about what will happen if this bill passes, including the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). 

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The AAD has been very outspoken against this bill including when it passed in Hawaii, their main concern lies in skin cancer rates increasing even more drastically than they already have. According to CNN, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. There were 66,000 new cases of skin cancer in 2009 which increased to more than 82,000 by 2016. Florida alone has the second highest rate for skin cancer due to its proximity to the equator, (CNN). However, many individuals aren’t concerned so much with a potential lack of sunscreen choices, but more so how their current sunscreens have been affecting them. If those chemicals are strong enough to bleach coral, what are they doing to your body? 

Legislators and the Food and Drug Administration both have come forward as these laws have gained traction, and stated that there’s no evidence proving oxybenzone and octinoxate are harmful to humans, however, there’s never been any real in depth research done on the two chemicals, so no one really knows. The FDA is recommending that regardless of your stance on this sunscreen bill, you make sure you have a sunscreen that at least contains Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide. In the meantime, they will be performing extensive tests on twelve different sunscreen ingredients, including oxybenzone and octinoxate, to truly determine all the effects of the chemicals.