For more than 50 years, dermatologists and government health agencies including the CDC have advised the public to avoid sun exposure whenever possible, to seek shade when outside, to wear sun-protective clothing and to apply sunscreen every time they go outside even if it is a cloudy day.  They tell the public that their reason for this sun-avoidance advice is that sun exposure causes melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.  They do not tell the public that only severe sunburns are correlated with melanoma. They do not warn the public of the dangers of not getting enough sun exposure. They say that the only benefit of sun exposure is vitamin D which can be safely obtained by taking vitamin D supplements.
 

• The majority of Americans today have heard this advice so often and for so long that they believe it. 

• This advice is incorrect and is harming the health of millions of Americans. 

• There have been significant advances in the science of sun exposure and human health since the beginning of the 21st century.  This advanced science is being ignored by dermatologists and public health authorities, who stubbornly continue to bombard the public with their sun-avoidance advice.

21st century science reveals that:
 

• The relationship between sun exposure and melanoma is not simple.  Severe sunburns (sunburns causing pain for at least 48 hours or causing blistering or peeling) are correlated with significant increased risk of melanoma, but non-burning sun exposure is correlated with significant reduced risk of melanoma. 

• In addition, sun exposure is correlated with longer life span and with reduced risk of a wide variety of chronic diseases and even some infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

• The authorities are wrong about vitamin D supplements because sun exposure produces many biomolecules in the human body in addition to vitamin D.

• 70% of Americans are so sun-deprived that insufficient sun exposure has become the nation’s #2 public health problem, a fact that is totally ignored by the CDC, the agency of our government that is responsible for the public health of our citizens. 

The purpose of the Sunshine Health Foundation is to bring this scientific information to the public.