Girl fried despite use of sunscreen
Slip, slop and slap — it is a message some Kiwis say they are following this summer but are still getting burnt. Photos of burnt faces and bodies are being shared online along with claims that sunscreen was used.
It comes after the family of 4-month-old baby Noah Watson went public about their son’s severe burns even after his mother generously applied Cancer Society SPF50 sunscreen on him.
Larissa Thompson said her daughter had a similar experience and suffered a sunburnt back.
“I have had [to] apologise to my 15-year-old daughter, who came back from the beach looking like a pink flamingo, as I accused her of not using sunscreen.
“Lizzy has pale skin and very conscious of her susceptibility to being burnt if she didn’t cover up.
“So she was applying thickly every half hour but it was completely useless. She may as well have applied moisturiser for all the good it did.
Thompson said she had bought Lizzy a tube of the Cancer Society’s SPF50+ sunscreen just before Christmas. It was a brand the family had always used and with no problems.
“She had very bad sunburn with a patch on her shoulder going down a few layers of skin.”
Cancer Society NZ chief Mike Kernaghan said they were in the process of investigating up to 30 complaints from people and were also speaking with the family of little Noah Watson.
Up to 60 complaints were received by the Cancer Society each year.
The process investigated the complaint itself in the first instance, he said, rather than the product.
Other factors were checked — for example, how the product was used or applied — before the expiry date and the batch of sunscreen were looked at more carefully and then tested if needed.
“It is unsafe to use any sunscreen . . . that is past its expiry date. We check those things as well just to make sure that the product is robust and still met the claim.
“It is a bit of a process, but it is important to have that process.”
Kernaghan stressed they took every complaint seriously, but said they were very confident with their available products and the SPF protection levels they carried.