A Senate committee on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have banned the sale of many types of sunscreens in Hawaii.
Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection and Health Committee Chairwoman Rosalyn Baker said the restrictions on certain types of sunscreens called for in Senate Bill 2778 Opens in a new tab was not scientifically justified, and said the bill might have discouraged the use of sunscreen itself.
“Skin cancer is a very prevalent cancer in Hawaii, and I just can’t in good conscience — as a cancer survivor myself — do something that I know is going to make it easier for people to get burned and get cancer, and then we have a whole set of other problems to treat,” said Baker, (D-West Maui-South Maui).
Baker deferred action on the bill Wednesday, effectively blocking its passage for this session.
Lawmakers in 2018 banned the sale of over-the-counter sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate, which were identified as being harmful to coral reefs. Hawaii was the first state to pass such a law, which will take effect Jan. 1.
SB 2778 proposed a much more sweeping ban, and would have only allowed the sale of sunscreen products with two ingredients — zinc oxide and titanium dioxide — that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration generally recognizes as safe and effective to be sold or distributed in Hawaii.
That would have effectively prohibited sale of sunscreens that contain 14 other chemicals often listed among ingredients in sunscreens sold in Hawaii stores, including homosalate, octisalate, octocrylene and avobenzone.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded Opens in a new tab that two of the chemicals that were covered by the bill — PABA and trolamine salicylate — have “safety issues” and therefore are not considered generally safe and effective for use in sunscreens.
The agency reported it does not yet have enough data to make a determination on whether the other dozen chemicals are safe and effective.
Representatives of the groups Surfrider Oahu, Animal Rights Hawaii, Friends of Hanauma Bay, and Activities &Attractions Association of Hawaii provided testimony in favor of the bill as a way to protect Hawaii’s coral reefs.
However, the state Department of Health worried that sharply restricting the sale
of sunscreens to those with only the two approved active ingredients could increase the risk of skin cancer, and Baker said lawmakers’ emphasis should be on preventing cancer.
“There’s no real evidence that the products that were in that bill are actually stressing reefs,” Baker said. Testing that was done on chemicals covered by the bill was conducted on coral in a confined area rather than in the open ocean, she said, “and I’m told that when you put corals in a confined area, they’re stressed already.”
“There just wasn’t good science behind that,” she said.
