Why doesn't the US have better sunscreen?

What It Covers

The US FDA has not approved a new sunscreen active ingredient since the late 1990s, leaving Americans with inferior formulations. Skin entrepreneur Charlotte Palermino and economist Alex Tabarrok examine the regulatory bottleneck and propose structural fixes.

Key Questions Answered

• •Regulatory classification gap: The FDA classifies sunscreen as a drug, not a cosmetic, requiring clinical proof of both safety and effectiveness. This standard blocked bemitrizanol despite decades of international use, costing DSM Firmenich at least $18 million and roughly 30 years to gain approval.
• •Public health cost of over-caution: Only 13% of Americans wear sunscreen daily, and 1 in 5 will develop skin cancer by age 70. Economist Alex Tabarrok argues that excessive FDA risk-aversion creates an "invisible graveyard" of preventable deaths that never appear in regulatory cost-benefit calculations.
• •Peer approval as a policy fix: Tabarrok proposes automatically approving drugs and ingredients already cleared by stringent peer regulators like the European Medicines Agency. Senator Ted Cruz introduced legislation along these lines, though it has not advanced, and a 2025 law did broaden accepted evidence types.
• •Citizen advocacy accelerates legislation: Charlotte Palermino mobilized social media audiences to contact Congress, partnered with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a bipartisan push, and helped pass a 2025 law expanding acceptable safety evidence, directly contributing to bemitrizanol's June 2025 FDA approval.