20-plus melanoma cases a week
Tighter law on sunscreen claims due within months
Upwards of 20 people are being diagnosed with melanoma in the Bay of Plenty each week, a leading skin doctor says. It comes after a bill ensuring all sunscreens in New Zealand met the level of SPF they claimed on the bottle passed its first reading in Parliament last week.
Anyone who produces sunscreen in this country can sell it without having to test it actually provides the level of protection it claims.
Bay of Plenty National MP Todd Muller hopes to change that with the Sunscreen Product Safety Standard Bill.
Having passed its first reading on Wednesday, the bill will now go before a select committee that will also take submissions from across New Zealand.
Muller told the Bay of Plenty Times he hoped Parliament would be back in the house to pass it into law within a few months.
“I’m stoked,” he said when asked about his reaction to the bill passing its first reading.
“I’ve worked hard to get crossparty support and I’ve got every party to back it, so it’s a really great first step but it’s needed.
“I think the whole idea that you have sunscreen but you can’t be sure that the SPF on the label is what’s in the bottle is a bit of nonsense. This bill will fix that.”
Muller thought most people in New Zealand would have been affected by skin cancer and he had had minor skin cancers removed himself.
Non-melanoma skin cancers are far more common than melanoma, but they tend to be less serious as long as they are treated.
New Zealand has the highest incidence rate — the probability of a medical condition occurring in a population — of melanoma in the world.
Dr Franz Strydom of Tauranga’s Skinspots skin cancer clinic said there was a major problem with melanoma and other skin cancers in the region.
“There are about 20 melanomas a week,” he said.
“The non-melanoma skin cancers, there’s far more being done. It’s almost 10 times more being diagnosed for those.
“There’s certainly a problem. All the skincare clinics in Tauranga are booked at least a month ahead, some three.”
He said there were two major factors why cancer rates were so high in the Bay of Plenty: heritage and lifestyle.
Many people in the region are of Scottish heritage and fair-skinned and the lifestyle in the region centred around often being outdoors, Strydom said.
He took issue with there being no standardisation of sunscreens and said standards needed to be enforced.
“Some work a lot better than others.” “We need to know that if we put something on, that it’s going to work and we need to know what we can expect from it.”
Rotorua mother Elizabeth Pilaar lost her son Michael, 19, to melanoma in 2017.
She said it was “ridiculous” sunscreens did not need to prove they provided the protection they claimed to already and was all for Muller’s bill to be approved.
“We all want to enjoy the sun but it’s really shocking what [many of] these sunscreen brands have been doing for years.
“New Zealand has one of the highest melanoma rates in the world. It’s ridiculous.”
Pilaar said people should familiarise themselves with the ‘‘ABCDES’’ of melanoma, an acronym designed to help people identify skin cancers.
She also wanted to especially thank Consumer NZ for the work it had done for years around testing sunscreen protection claims.
In 2020, the watchdog tested 10 sunscreens and found only five were up to standard.
Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy said it was surprising and disappointing it had taken this long before someone took action.
“Any move towards making it mandatory for sunscreen manufacturers to comply with the Australianew Zealand standard is good.
“It is an odd situation that in a country with one of the highest rates of melanoma in the world, we do not require sunscreen manufacturers to meet the basic standards.
“In 10 years, when we look back at this period in time when there was no mandatory standard and loose rules around sunscreen, people will be dumbfounded by the idea there wasn’t firm regulation in place.”