WHITEMAN: They had teams of dermatologists poring over the town.
PARADIS: For one common type of skin cancer - basal cell carcinoma - they found the strict sunscreen use and skin checks didn't make a difference. For another - squamous cell carcinoma - it did. That rate dropped by almost 40%. But then there's melanoma, the rarer but scarier, more aggressive kind.
RASCOE: That's the kind that kills people, right?
PARADIS: Right. It's the deadliest one. But because melanoma is rarer, they didn't necessarily expect to see a significant difference with sunscreen and skin checks. But they did.
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WHITEMAN: Which was interesting and surprising.
RASCOE: So sunscreen use did reduce melanoma?
PARADIS: Yes. This isn't the only evidence to support this conclusion. But it is the only evidence at this level, which David described as, quote, the "gold standard in clinical medicine."
WHITEMAN: And it's probably the only evidence of that level that we're ever going to get because it's unlikely that anyone in the future will ever be able to repeat a study like that. So love it or loathe it, that's the evidence that we have.
ADAMSON: And that - the entire kind of foundation upon which we promote sunscreen for prevention of melanoma rests on that single study.
PARADIS: This again is dermatologist Ade Adamson. And Ade pointed out that as solid as this study is, it's not perfect.
ADAMSON: It was all white people in the Australian study, essentially.
PARADIS: Well, all but four out of more than 1,600 participants.
RASCOE: OK. Well, what does this mean for people of color? If the advice for white people is, wear sunscreen every day, is that true for people of color, too? Should Black people wear sunscreen?
PARADIS: Well, this is the question. First of all, my sources told me there's just not enough research on people of color, sunscreen and UV exposure, period. But here's what we know. Skin cancer is a serious risk for people with lighter skin - people of northern European descent, typically. But for Black people, the risk is way, way lower. Now, right up top, I do want to acknowledge here that people of color, or even Black people - these terms are too broad. Obviously, skin tone varies widely within these descriptions, and I'll talk more about that in a minute. But in the United States, government data shows that melanoma is in the ballpark of 30 times more prevalent in white people than in Black people.
