Relax while the heat is on

As is always the case when there is this sort of headline-grabbing scare, people have a tendency to panic. It should not come as a surprise that mothers would back off from breast feeding in the face of that kind of information, and holidaymakers on beaches around the globe must have paused, Boots Soltan in hand, to wonder whether the devil they knew was better than the one whose ingredient listing they couldn't make head or tail of.

In fact, as with many scare stories, there are qualifying factors. Dioxins are in breast milk because they are in the environment. They will be present in formula milk, too, because while boiling gets rid of bugs, it does not get rid of dioxins. According to a Unicef report, ''about three days of life expectancy would be lost because of cancer attributable to contaminant exposure through breast milk''.

According to Save the Children, the hazards of not breast feeding far outweigh those of breast feeding, and along with most experts in child welfare the organisation comes down heavily in favour of continuing to give babies the immunity and nourishment which nature designed for them.

So where does that leave sunbathers, or indeed any of us who spend any time outdoors and have believed it was sensible to follow the advice to protect ourselves from the sun's harmful rays?

Although we moan every time a cloud appears in the sky, Scotland has had some scorchers this summer, and getting burned is what can lead to skin cancer. As we have been told ad nauseam, this is the fastest-increasing incidence of cancer in the UK, and because, in the main, Scots are not designed to be exposed to a fortnight's basting in Benidorm (or to weekly sessions on sunbeds, if it comes to that), we are particularly vulnerable.

If sun barriers contain chemicals which are absorbed into the body and are possibly carcinogenic, are we simply to stay in Saltcoats and pray for rain?

There are, in fact, chemical-free alternatives to conventional suncreens which have sun protection factors (SPF) up to 46. If we are to presume that because pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs are all-pervasive, then obviously no guarantees can be made about any product, or any food for that matter. The German company Lavera, however, uses organic ingredients in its products, and has four sun lotions which it claims offer

better options to products which contain chemicals.

The company's sales manager, Werner Oelschlaeger, explains that the way conventional sunscreens work is that the chemicals are absorbed into the skin from where they modify the effect of the suns rays on the skin. The two products in the Lavera range which contain no synthetics are based on minerals. These are not absorbed into the skin but reflect the sun's rays. These have SPFs of 10 and 15.

The two other sunscreens in the company's range have what is described as ''a very mild synthetic content'' to give them a higher protection factor. Oelschlaeger says they mix minerals with the synthetics, but he says: ''We are very honest about this, and there are no synthetics in the lotion itself. The lotion is totally natural. Almost all the plants we use are organic.''

Oelschlaeger recommends using minerals as a sunscreen because there are no side-effects, claiming that synthetics ''have a negative influence on your body''. The German company was the first in the world to create a product using only minerals and has been commended in tests carried out by one of Germany's more critical ecological publications. Oelschlaeger says they have a small, niche market of DM10m (around #3m-4m) in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The company is now moving into Britain, and will retail through the Glasgow health food store Grassroots.

Grassroots also stock American-manufactured products from a company called Jason, which also uses no chemicals and ''the finest source'' of plants, roots, minerals, and herbs. Alexandre Barani, who represents the company in Britain, says that among the company's skin and bodycare products are four plant-based sunscreen products. There are no petroleums, no mineral oils, no artificial ingredients or colourants, and if this is scientifically possible in view of their all-pervasive nature, certainly no dioxins or PCBs.

''Our sun-sensible products have very high protection against UVA and UVB rays,'' Barani says.

The company's 30SFP product also contains a natural insect repellent (it's called Bye Bye Bugs). There is a family sunscreen with a 36SPF, a 40SPF for sports, and a 46SPF sunblock for children. Among the products' ingredients are aloe vera gel, camomile, green tea, Vitamin C and Vitamin E, as well as enzyme minerals, coconut oil, and beeswax.

What do the medical experts say? The Health Education Board for Scotland's position on skin cancer is unequivocal. Dr James Inglis has gone on record to say: ''There is no such thing as a healthy tan. Cases can be linked directly to the rise in popularity of suntans, foreign holidays, and the use of sunbeds in the past 20 to 30 years.''

Eminent doctors in the field have called for bans on sunbeds, including Professor John Hawk, consultant dermatologist at St Thomas's Hospital in London, who earlier this year suggested that up to 60% of people using sunbeds regularly could be at risk from developing skin cancer and other skin complaints. He said: ''This is going to be a problem for fair-skinned people who use sunbeds once or twice a week for two to four years. I think we could see 50%-60% of those people developing pre-cancerous going on to cancerous cells.''

Professor Hawk has also warned that medications such as the contraceptive pill, anti-depressants, and water tablets can react with the chemicals in the UVA lights used in sunbeds and cause adverse reactions such as severe burning, putting people at an increased risk.

Skin cancer is by no means a minority problem. More than 40,000 people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year in the UK and up to 1500 die from the disease. The rates are doubling annually.

Little wonder, then, that the professionals who deal with the disease would be anxious that the campaigns to encourage us to use sunscreens would be undermined by reports suggesting the sunscreens themselves may not be safe.

Professor Rona MacKie, head of the department of dermatology at the University of Glasgow and Scotland's foremost voice on skin cancer, says: ''The recent WWF Report provides interesting findings on increased exposure of babies to contaminants in breast milk. However, I think it is important that the issue of the possibility of sunscreen chemicals being absorbed into the body is seen in perspective.''

Professor MacKie explains: ''When compared with the many compounds and pollutants which the body is exposed to, sunscreens play a tiny part, and therefore represent a cause for only very minor concern.

''The WWF report states that traces of two compounds, benzophenone and octyl methoxy cinnamic acid, which are used as a constituent in some sunscreens, have been found in breast milk. There has, however, been no monitoring in the UK and therefore no evidence here of these compounds being a contaminant to which unborn babies are exposed.''

Along with other health experts, she stresses that mothers should be encouraged to continue breastfeeding, and adds: ''They should also continue to protect their skin from damage from exposure to the sun. Those who do have concerns about compounds in sunscreens should adopt other approaches, such as staying out of the sun or covering up. Using a sunscreen is only part of our advice for protection of the skin.''

We can take it as read that Professor MacKie's advice applies to all of us, not only to breastfeeding mothers. Enjoy the sun, but do it from behind the protection of a sunscreen (choosing an alternative to the chemically formulated varieties if you feel happier that way), from underneath a hat and T-shirt, and outwith the hours when only mad dogs and Englishmen are said to disport themselves in the sun's rays.