Pretty much every other country has better and less toxic sunscreen than the US, but unfortunately we categorize sunscreens as drugs and there’s not enough money in sunscreen do the kind of trial FDA requires for new drugs.
Why should sunscreen, which you smear your body with be put through a less rigorous process to ensure safety, than, say, any one of the topical drugs prescribed by doctors?
Soaps, lotions, all manner of potions go straight to the consumer because they're not marketed as drugs. It only counts as a drug if you want to claim on the package that it has a biological effect.
The FDA process as it's set up now isn't about safety necessarily. It's about whether you're allowed to claim your product has an effect. If you want to say it protects against UV light, that's going to cost you about $20 million. If it's for a product you don't even have a patent on, that's just not going to happen.
