McCain’s Melanoma Cover-Up

When John McCain airboated through the sundrenched Florida Everglades in June, he was sure to lather up with plenty of sunscreen (SPF30 is his preferred) and wear a baseball cap. For someone with his melanoma history, this was poor preventive medicine. In a UVA saturated wetland this outfit made him vulnerable for more melanomas on his face, neck, hands and other exposed areas.

In fact, the most effective preventive sunscreen is not found in an expensive six-ounce bottle, which generally offers little or no melanoma protection. It is simple avoidance of the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., proper clothing and eyewear, wide brimmed hats (four inches or more), and shady structures.

The facts are readily before us. McCain’s cherished SPF-30 rating is meaningless when it comes to melanoma. The SPF rating scale applies only to ultraviolet-B radiation (290 to 320 nanometers along the sun’s spectrum) which causes red sunburn and is a major contributor to the more easily curable basal and squamous cell skin cancers. The consensus of biomedical research and opinion is that melanoma is strongly related to exposure to ultraviolet radiation, type A (UVA), the long solar waves (320 to 400 nanometers along the sun’s spectrum) that travel beneath the skin’s surface to damage melanocytes, the pigment making cells. In other words, a SPF for melanoma would have to be: SPF=0.

And McCain’s baseball cap won’t do either. According to the National Cancer Institute baseball caps are insufficient sun protectors because they “do not fully protect the face, neck, and ears.” The NCI is actively trying to dissuade citizens from using them in deference to big hats or draped baseball caps.

McCain’s activities may have cost him his life (as we’ll discuss), and more importantly, they may contribute to the loss of thousands of lives for those who emulate his behavior. As the most well-known melanoma victim of our times, McCain’s decision to shun the best sunsmart policies (noted below) sets a very bad example.

But John McCain apparently doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or just doesn’t want to draw attention to his disease by donning a showy 4-inch wide brimmed hat for his ongoing public appearances. One can speculate on reasons why. Fashion is a form of communication and politicians want to communicate that they are fit and healthy. They do not want to be a walking advertisement that communicates cancer victim or worrywart.

A wide-brimmed hat, unlike the hiphop baseball cap, may not be perceived as being “cool”. The broad hat breaks a cultural denial mechanism. It’s apparently far too risky, from a public relations standpoint, to send a non-macho, “I fear the sun” message. For John McCain, apparently, image politics trumps public health.

What’s Covered Up

Melanoma is one of the fastest growing cancers of our time. If not caught early, there’s a good chance that it will metastasize and kill you. So far it might have been caught early enough for Troy Aikman, Sam Donaldson and McCain (but we cannot know for sure). But sadly it was not for Maureen Reagan, Bob Marley, and rising folk-musician star Eva Cassidy, gone at 33. The problem with melanoma is that it is a very tricky and unpredictable cancer that can silently metastasize to the lungs and brain (common targets) years, even decades, after the original tumor was excised from the skin. The absolute key is prevention.

In 1930 melanoma was rare, with a lifetime risk of just one in 1,500 people. Since then, it has grown exponentially, with a lifetime risk in the United States of 1 in 250 in 1980, 1 in 120 in 1987, 1 in 75 by 2000 and 1 in 32 today (Swetter 2007). The black cells of melanoma will strike an estimated 59,940 in the United States in 2007 and kill a projected 8,110 (American Cancer Society 2006). Worldwide it annually strikes an estimated 132,000 people with an estimated 48,000 deaths (Lucas: W.H.O. 2006).

McCain’s silence about several raging sunscreen controversies is disturbing. In June the Environmental Working Group reported on their study that tested 952 sunscreen products. They concluded that 809 should be either treated with caution or avoided altogether. They said they acted because the federal government refused to do so.

Earlier, in 2006, the nation’s most successful class-action law firm, Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP, filed a class action lawsuit against leading sunscreen producers (including Schering-Plough, makers of Coppertone, Sun Pharmaceuticals, producers of Banana Boat, Tanning Research Laboratories, (Hawaiian Tropic), Neutrogena Corp. and Johnson & Johnson (Neutrogena), and Chattem Inc. (Bullfrog). Samuel Rudman, a partner, claimed, “Sunscreen is the Snake Oil of the 21st Century and these companies that market it are Fortune 500 Snake Oil salesmen.” “False claims such as `sunblock’ `waterproof” and `all-day protection’ should be removed from these products immediately,” he said.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) addressed the overreaching claims of the sunscreen industry in the late 1990s. In 1997 the FTC reached an agreement with Schering-Plough, Coppertone’s manufacturer, and the corporation with the industry’s largest market share, to cease its deceptions about the efficacy of its products, but Schering-Plough never complied with the agreement (Segrave 2005; Goldstein 2006). The FDA has yet to require sunscreen makers to tell the truth.

Where is McCain on these issues? Why doesn’t the media confront him?

False Security in the Sun = More Melanoma

The essential truth about sunscreen was first brought to light by epidemiologists Frank and Cedric Garland in 1990 after their soon-to-be-published work was profiled in a New York Times article (Angier 1990). The two brothers investigated the use of sunscreen on military populations and concluded that “sunscreens give you a false sense of security,” because they did not sufficiently block out UVA rays (Angier 1990; Garland et al. 1992; Segrave 2005).

In other words when a mom lathers her son up with a generic SPF-30 sunscreen for mid-day soccer game, she might feel comforted that he can stay out on the sun-drenched field longer because of his protection. While he is receiving some protection from UVB radiation, more than likely he’s receiving a massive dose of UVA radiation with virtually no protection. Further, the lack of a sunburn from the sunscreen will reinforce this illusion of safety, resulting in longer exposure times.

It turns out that U.S. sun-care manufacturers-who had $1.9 billion in sales in 2005 (Marketresearch.com 2005) do not tell people the full truth about their sunscreen products in their advertising, labeling, websites, or commercials. Sunscreen makers willfully take advantage of the ambiguity of the term skin cancer in their marketing, avoiding any open reference to the term melanoma while strongly appealing to melanoma fears, since about 80 percent of all skin cancer deaths are due to melanoma (Etzel and Balk 2003). Over the past half century, as the frequency of melanoma exploded, so has sunscreen production, with apparently little or no preventive effect. It is a powerful correlation that alarms epidemiologists and other researchers, suggesting causal linkages, but to many doctors it’s just an irony.

In 1990, the Garland’s research conclusions were considered subversive. The American Academy of Dermatologists quickly denounced the Garland’s research, arguing that it would inhibit sunscreen use and result in more cancers. Alarmed at the attacks and afraid it would affect future research funding, the Garlands decided to avoid journalists and keep out of the public eye (Segrave 2005). Thus did the biomedical establishment successfully ostracize them and their conclusions were mostly forgotten for three years (Segrave 2005:113).

Today a rising chorus of scientists, environmentalists and governments are making the same arguments as the Garland brothers. And yet, officially speaking, in the U.S. this knowledge is invisible.

Drug company propaganda filters throughout the culture creating a context where McCain can get away with avoiding the topic. Schools, sports teams, supermarkets, and the media vigorously promote the idea-through their actions, emphases, and omissions-that sunscreen is the first and most important choice in fighting skin cancer and melanoma. Incredibly, pediatricians rarely counsel sun protection in office visits even though they provide health care to a population, children, that receive up to 80 percent of their total sun exposure before the age of 18 (Etzel and Balk 2003). According to one study, doctors broach the issue in only 1 percent of clinical visits and when they do, sunscreen is the most recommended cancer precaution (Easton et al. 1997).

McCain has had little or nothing publicly to say about these issues. Instead, as the nation’s virtual teacher on sunsmart behavior, he undermines the best practices through his actions.

How they do Melanoma Prevention Down Under

Australia and New Zealand have the highest melanoma rates on the planet (one in 25 will get melanoma in Aussieland) and as a result have taken dramatic public health measures to fight the disease. They have a “No Hat, No Play” rule. Every child must wear a hat to play outside. Recess times are often scheduled outside the 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. time frame. Soccer games, played without hats under the high sun in the U.S. are delayed till a safer time Down Under. Children have begun wearing neck-to-knee swimsuits on beaches and at pools. Lifeguards are directed to set an example by wearing sunglasses, wide-brimmed hats, long-sleeved shirts, zinc oxide, and sunscreen as well as sitting in the shade. Many pools and playgrounds are now covered by expansive tents or newly planted trees (Gies et al. 1998).

The government also recruits popular athletes as fashion models for sun-smart behaviors. In one campaign, Olympic swimming gold medalist Dawn Fraser illustrates the above lifeguard fashions. These campaigns are associated with an increase in the use of protective clothing and shade in adults and children.

Of these necessary public health interventions, McCain has said little or nothing. Few in the U.S. are even aware of these important public health precautions.

Cultural Ignorance is Rampant

Many citizens have no knowledge of melanoma. In a 1996 random-digit dialed survey of 1,001 persons, reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a high proportion of respondents (42 percent) had no knowledge about melanoma (CDC 1996). Only 16 percent of those ages 18 to 24 were aware that melanoma is a type of skin cancer (CDC 1996). They probably conclude that the distinction between the three types of skin cancer is not that important since sunscreen companies do not make such a distinction in their marketing-and the government does not require them to do so. The idea that skin cancer is easily curable reinforces this false conclusion.

For the novice, there are three simple levels to understand the disease. The first is scanning the body to identify a possible tumor. Often it’s a dark mole with irregular borders and about the size of a pencil eraser. The second level is surgically excising a thick section of flesh around the skin tumor to capture any errant melanoma cells that may have traveled a few inches from the mole. Often lymph nodes are removed as well. The third level is the waiting, year after year, to see whether any melanoma cells have silently escaped from the original lesion and gathered in the internal organs (often the brain or lungs), where it will then likely kill you. There is about a 50% mortality during the first year after such an event has been discovered.

Will the Sunscreen kill him?

A dermatologist checks for new independent tumors on the skin which usually have nothing to do with a possible metastasis from another tumor. McCain has had at least four independent lesions over the past 15 years. In 1993 a small, relatively thin melanoma was removed from his left shoulder. This event was enough to provoke McCain to realize that he had to be very cautious in the sun. After the 1993 scare, McCain developed a routine, he says, in which he lathered up his body with a SPF30 each morning and began wearing a baseball cap when out in the sun (though McCain is often photographed without one). This meant that he ignored medical advice that he should wear a wide brimmed hat (four inches or more) whenever he was in the mid-day sun.

However, seven years later, in 2000, right after he dropped out of the presidential race, McCain had a much more dangerous tumor removed from his left temple (or cheek). This is a very common area for melanoma and one that a baseball cap does not sufficiently protect from the harsh UVA rays. It was 2 centimeters wide and as deep as the depth of a nickel (.22 cm.). Doctors called it a Stage 2a melanoma, which has about a 35% mortality over ten years. We are now eight years into that decade-long wait and it is likely that McCain has beat it. According to his physician, the chance of metastasis is now under 10%.

But there are no guarantees. People with this sort of melanoma have been known to die 15 years after the original tumor was discovered.

And then, amazingly, in 2002 it happened again. McCain was diagnosed with a fourth melanoma, this time on his nose, the left nasal sidewall. What makes this all the more remarkable is that, even after a near-mortal blow to his face, McCain persisted with the same strategy of sunscreen and a baseball cap.

So, did McCain’s use of sunscreen contribute to his possible death? The uncomfortable facts are these. If McCain had relied on a wide-brimmed hat (or a baseball cap with a drape over the cheeks and neck) and avoided the mid-day sun between 1993 (when he was originally diagnosed with his first melanoma) and 2000 (when he got his second melanoma on his face), his chances of escaping a serious blow from melanoma would likely have been improved. Moreover, if McCain had been better educated on the pitfalls of sunscreen he might have sought other solutions. Also, if McCain had used a sunscreen product with a higher UVA protection ingredient than not (for example, zinc oxide, or avobenzone and mexoryl which though imperfect and lacking in long-term photostabilty do offer slightly more protection than the majority of sunscreens on the market), he may have been better protected. After searching widely I was not able to discern the specific sunscreen product McCain used between 1993 and 2002. It is difficult to determine the type of sunscreen McCain uses today, in 2008.

Interestingly, McCain’s presidential website lists a variety of $15.95 McCain hats. . .all of them baseball caps. Imagine if McCain did the right thing and sold sun-protective hats? He would have a powerful influence on the culture.

There is a twist to this. McCain is watched like a hawk, receiving full body scans by his physicians as well as his wife Cindy, who has been trained to know what to look for. Supposedly, the thinking within the McCain camp is that it is alright for McCain to risk another (paper thin) melanoma lesion since his image of a strong man must be protected. It is probably thought that he can afford to go on without a wide brimmed hat because any suspicious lesion will be rapidly excised. But one must remember that this strategy did NOT work for the period 1993-2000 when the invasive (35% mortality tumor) was discovered.

From a public health standpoint this strategy is harmful to millions of people who are influenced by McCain’s melanoma practices.

Also, while McCain might be able to afford the best in medical care, with immediate dermatological care, for tens of millions of Americans, this is not available. To make matters worse, dermatological ignorance is rampant. According to a 2006 study in the Archives of Dermatology (Moore et al. 2006), 43.4 percent of 934 students graduating from seven U.S. medical schools had never examined a patient for skin cancer. Only 28.2 percent rated themselves as somewhat or very skilled in skin cancer examination, a rate that dropped to 19.7 percent among 553 students who had not completed a dermatology elective (Moore et al. 2006). Segments of the public health community have reinforced this practice. In 2003 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force updated its research and reached the disappointing conclusion that the evidence is insufficient to recommend for or against routine counseling by primary care clinicians to prevent skin cancer (Helfand and Krages 2003).

Where was McCain? FDA Defeated in Behind-the-Scenes Corporate Battle over “Commercial Speech”

In 1999, the FDA drafted new, more stringent language to specifically restrict the use of misleading claims of sunscreen manufacturers. The FDA was about to crack down on labels with “unsupported, absolute, and/or misleading and confusing terms such as ‘sunblock,’ ‘waterproof,’ ‘all-day protection’ and ‘visible and/or infrared light protection'” (Brune 2005), but over the next few years there was an intensive lobbying effort by sunscreen manufactures and their trade group, the Cosmetics, Toiletries and Fragrance Association, and the FDA was persuaded not to implement the rules. Lobbyists argued that “commercial speech” protection for sunscreen manufacturers was more important than truthful consumer protection for the public.

Leading the lobbying charge was John Roberts, a White House lawyer who had convinced President Ronald Reagan in 1985 to tell the public that science had not yet proven that casual contact or simple touch was safe enough to ensure protection from AIDS, thus setting back HIV prevention and education efforts for a significant period (Simone 2006). According to FDA records, Roberts met with FDA officials, including FDA chief counsel Daniel Troy, a strong Bush supporter, on January 4, 2000, and on October 29, 2001 (OMB Watch 2005). A few months after the last meeting, the FDA suspended the stricter rules for labeling sunscreen products. Between 1998 and 2004 Schering-Plough spent $28 million in lobbying efforts (Lobbywatch 2006). Robert’s future successes are illuminating. In September 2005 he was appointed chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

McCain voted for Roberts.

In a telling irony which underscores the continuing assault on First Amendment rights in the United States, on May 30, 2006, Roberts ruled with the 5-4 Supreme Court majority that approximately 20 million governmental employees no longer have full free speech rights. The implications are chilling. In effect this ruling means that the sunscreen industry is free to continue deceiving the public under “commercial speech” protections while, at the same time an employee within the FDA, CDC, NIH, or any other governmental agency who witnesses corruption between his superiors and corporations like Schering-Plough are not free to blow the whistle without the risk of being fired or prosecuted. Thus, “commercial speech” has made gains over “free speech” as the United States slips closer to authoritarianism (Giroux 2004). According to social theorist Henry Giroux, “within neoliberalism’s market-driven discourse, corporate power marks the space of a new kind of public pedagogy, one in which the production, dissemination, and circulation of ideas emerges from the educational force of the larger culture” (Giroux 2004:106).

It is unlikely that the FDA will reverse itself. In a Federal Register notice published on May 16, 2002, the FDA states that “recent case law has emphasized the need for not imposing unnecessary restrictions on speech.” However in a surprising move, on May 29, 2007, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal filed a formal petition with the FDA urging that it implement its 1999 rules. “The FDA is AWOL-enabling false labeling, and encouraging overexposure to the sun,” Blumenthal said in a press release. “It has shelved rules that could save lives. Reliance on voluntary compliance has led to pervasive deception,” he said. “The FDA’s delay is unfathomable and unconscionable. Claims to block ‘all harmful rays,’ and ‘waterproof’ are mostly truth proof. The FDA has put new sunscreen standards in bureaucratic limbo, making them dead letter, useless and unenforceable” (Blumenthal 2007).

In May 2006 the European Union (EU) acted to do for European citizens what the FDA has not done for U.S. citizens, launching a dramatic initiative to improve its sunscreen labeling system. The EU argues that claims like “sunblockers” and “total protection” are untrue.

We addressed Ozone, we can do it with other “sunscreens”

The ozone layer is nature’s sunscreen, blocking about 94 percent of all ultraviolet radiation from the sun (Blatt 2005). A simple molecule with three atoms of oxygen, ozone inhabits the earth’s stratosphere, a layer 10 and 22 miles above Earth. Worries about the ozone had been known for years. In 1974 the first clear and credible early warning came out regarding the threat to the ozone layer and increased skin cancer. The cause was a “miracle compound” of capitalist culture, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), first identified in 1927. One CFC, freon, became common in household refrigerators and air conditioners. Colder air helps to separate chlorine atoms from the CFC. Each chlorine atom can destroy about 100,000 ozone molecules.

In the 13 years after 1974, a contentious battle took place over ozone depletion led by chemical companies who fought against restrictions against products like aerosol sprays (NRDC 2005). The Natural Resources Defense Council brought a lawsuit against the EPA to force tighter restrictions on CFCs. Aerosol sprays containing CFCs were banned in 1978. Then suddenly in the mid-1980s, scientists found shocking proof of the theory, a dramatic ozone hole above the Antarctic. The result was the historically momentous Montreal Protocol of 1987. It was the first-ever global environmental agreement, signed by 57 nations. It halted the production of CFCs in industrial countries by 1996. Today more than 180 nations have signed on.

One reason for unanimity was almost universal recognition of the potential threat. In 1991 the EPA estimated that even if everyone phased out CFCs right on schedule, ozone loss would cause 12 million skin cancers in the United States and 200,000 deaths over the next 50 years (Montague 1994) EPA’s worldwide estimates put skin cancer almost in league with AIDS, projecting a billion skin cancers from ozone loss, including 17 million deaths by 2031. In 2000, the Montreal Protocol’s scientific assessment team stated that without the global agreement, ozone depletion would be at least 50 percent in the midlatitudes and as a result, ultraviolet radiation would double in the mid latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere and quadruple in the middle latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere. The result? By the year 2060, it is estimated that there will be an additional 19 million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer and 1.5 million more cases of melanoma.

The Montreal Protocol was one of the environmental movement’s greatest achievements. A similar approach, one that follows the Precautionary Principle is required to combat the cancer epidemic, largely a result of capitalist social relations.

Private Fashion Advances, But Not Much Else

There is an emerging market of sun-smart design clothing and furniture (e.g., long awnings and boat tops) that is important though it is not a serious challenge to sun-cream dominance. This includes Lands End and some other popular retailers that are now promoting sun-protective clothing in their stores. The quality of the fabric is not uniformly protective from manufacturer to manufacturer, however, the cultural phenomenon of associating clothing with sunscreen is a significant improvement.

According to several studies fluorescent light exposure remains a potential risk factor for melanoma and “chronic exposure to indoor lighting may deliver unexpected cumulative UV exposure to the skin and eyes” (Sayre 2004). This means that it would be legitimate-even necessary-to wear a sun hat and full-face drape inside an office setting. It also requires worker efforts to petition against the use of fluorescent lighting and find better alternatives. But what affect might that have on one’s career trajectory, even if one was permitted to do so? Employers need to develop a formal sun protection program in order to promote a safe work environment. In 1992 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wrote an interpretation of their Personal Protective Equipment Standards (1910.132(A)) stating that employers have a duty to protect workers who are overexposed to solar radiation on the job because this could result in serious physical harm or death. But most corporations and employers have no such policy. Unfortunately, there is only limited research in this area.

Can you imagine Senator McCain taking a position on these issues? He most likely won’t because to confront these issues challenges the deep structure of our culture.

In the end, melanoma must also be understood as a disease that occurs within a wider holistic context. The exponential leap in melanoma incidence over the past 50 years conjoined with the evidence herein presented indicates that serious political economic, environmental, and cultural causes are at root. Melanoma is a by-product of our capitalist culture which transfers responsibility back to the individual as the state diminishes its role in areas such as health care, public education, and social services. McCain is a product of this neoliberal culture and will most likely not, of course, address it.

Let’s Call it “Melanoma Whitewash”

When people think of “sunscreen,” few think about the ozone layer, about which sunscreen is the most important, or about skin pigmentation, clothes, shady structures over tennis courts, or hats. All are hidden “remainders” in the concept of sunscreen. Corporate culture’s use of the term sunscreen actually comes to mean the very opposite of what it is usually taken to mean. That is, the white creams screen from consciousness the darker meanings-and pigments-associated with being in the sun. In other words, sunscreen creams, to a significant degree, literally and figuratively whitewash melanoma.

Sunscreen is a near perfect representative of neoliberal capitalist culture. The bottle represents an apparent private solution (the bottled cream) to a public problem (sunsmart infrastructure, less toxic production practices and education). These public associations of “sunscreen” are excluded in the marketing. When we add to this equation that sunscreen, in the vast majority of cases, does not to do what it implies it might – prevent melanoma, the resulting sunscreen related disease becomes an example of cultural iatrogenesis, a disease ironically caused by those who assert their healing roles, be they physicians, the pharmaceutical industry and more broadly, the culture at large.

What is required is a cultural transformation in how we think and act about “sunscreens” and the sun. As part of this undertaking, a vast educational campaign is required. I suggest that efforts be made to establish a surgeon general’s warning on sunscreen bottles.

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Sunscreen does not sufficiently protect you from melanoma, the most deadly skin cancer, responsible for about 80% of all skin cancer deaths. Sunscreen may actually cause melanoma by giving you a false sense of security in the sun.

If elected, John McCain is not likely to appoint a Surgeon General of this mindset.

If McCain cannot grapple with the causes of his own mortal wounds – and seek to publicly confront them – how can he be trusted to protect us?

BRIAN McKENNA is a melanoma survivor for the past 16 years. He wears a draped sun hat. This article is adapted from his monograph, “Melanoma Whitewash: Millions at Risk of Injury or Death because of Sunscreen Deceptions,” in the book, “Killer Commodities: Public Health and the Corporate Production of Harm,” Merrill Singer and Hans Baer, eds., AltaMira Press (2008). He can be reached at: mckenna193@aol.com

Selected References (the rest are in the book)

Angier, Nathalie
1990 Theory Hints at Sunscreens Raise Melanoma Risks. New York Times, August 9: B10.

Blatt, Harvey
2005 America’s Environmental Report Card, Are We Making the Grade? Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Brune, Tom
2005 “Roberts Omits Stint with Cosmetics group,” Newsday, August 3.

Castleman, Michael
1993 Beach Bummer. Mother Jones 18:32-37.

Christensen, Damaris
2003 Data Still Cloudy on Association between Sunscreen Use and Melanoma Risk. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 95(13):932-933.

Davis, Devra
2007 The Secret History of the War on Cancer. New York: Basic Books.

Garland, C. F., F. C. Garland, and E. D. Gorham
1992 Could Sunscreens Increase Melanoma Risk? American Journal of Public Health 82(4):614, 615.
2003 Epidemiologic Evidence for Different Roles of Ultraviolet A and B Radiation in Melanoma Mortality Rates. Annals of Epidemiology 13(6):395-404.

Giroux, Henry
2004 The Terror of Neoliberalism. Boulder: Paradigm.

Medical News Today
2006 Sunscreens: European Commission Moves to Improve Labeling. Dermatology News, May 8.

Ministry of Health
2003 What Works in Cancer Prevention? Wellington: New Zealand Ministry of Health.

Montague, Peter
1991 “Dismantling Our Life-Support Systems. Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News #246, August 14. http://www.ejnet.org/rachel/rhwn246.htm
2004 Welcome to NanoWorld: Nanotechnology and the Precautionary Principle Imperative. Multinational Monitor 25(9):16-19.

New York Times
2005 Nominee Discloses Questionnaire Error. August 4: A14.

Segrave, Kerry
2005 Suntanning in 20th Century America. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Swetter, Susan
2007 Malignant Melanoma. Emedicine Clinical Knowledge Base from Web MD.

Walter, Stephen, Loraine Marrett, Harry Shannon, Lynn From, and Clyde Hertzman

1992 The Association of Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma and Fluorescent Light Exposure. American Journal of Epidemiology 135(7):749-762.

 

 

 

 

Brian McKenna is an anthropologist who teaches at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and can be reached at mckenna193@aol.com