Word: sun
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Here too the sun's ultraviolet radiation plays a role, but apparently a different one. Many melanoma victims have had three or more episodes of severe sunburn and blistering, usually as children or teenagers. Those experiences seem to set off a still mysterious process that results in the development of melanomas years later, often on parts of the body seldom exposed to the sun. Some evidence also exists that heredity plays a more important role in melanoma than in other skin cancers...
Dark pigmentation is obviously protective. The rare melanomas found among blacks develop almost exclusively in areas of lighter skin not usually exposed to the sun: palms of the hands, soles of the feet, under fingernails and even in the mouth. This leads experts to believe that melanomas among blacks are largely genetic...
Geography also plays a role in skin cancer. Equatorial regions, where the midday sun beams down from directly overhead, receive the most intense ultraviolet radiation. Farther north or south, solar rays strike the earth at a more oblique angle, taking a longer passage through the atmosphere, where the ozone layer absorbs more of the ultraviolet light before it can reach the surface...
...largely through the efforts of the Skin Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society, which attempt to spread the word through posters, pamphlets, newspaper ads and an occasional billboard. Hollywood may help. Some of today's most popular female stars, including Kim Basinger and Geena Davis, shun the sun, projecting a pale beauty that could influence a new generation. Manufacturers of sunscreens seem to have caught on. Store shelves these days display more screens with sun- protection factors of 15, 25 and 30 than with the once familiar 4 and 8 ratings...
...next few years in fighting skin cancer, the best therapy will remain prevention, especially in childhood and the teens, when most of the damage is done. To Americans long indoctrinated with the notion that a tan look is a healthy look, this means that instead of worshiping the sun, they had better begin respecting...