Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 29

Santa Cruz Sentinel Friday, July 5, 1991 C-3 1 Healthscience Who needs sunscreen? Everyone mm mi By KAREN SCHMIDT Sentinel correspondent LIFEGUARDS come to the rescue when an emergency arises on a beach; they protect beachgoers from dangerous rocks, stinging jellyfish and rip tides. But some dangers at the beach are more insidious. The sun's invisible ultraviolet rays, for example, can be deadly to sunbathers and lifeguards alike. Last year, 6,300 Americans died from melanoma the most serious form of skin cancer due largely to sun exposure. Melanoma is striking people at a rate that's increasing faster than any other cancer.

In 1935, the risk of getting melanoma was one in 1,500. In the next 10 years, the risk will jump to one in 75. In addition to training in water safetv. Santa Cruz iunior k. p.

CPS Hlf "t- Vi lifeguards now learn to save lives oy promoting sun satety. LAST Friday, at the city's Lifeguard Headquarters on the wharf, fifteen junior lifeguards gathered to hear Dr. James Beckett, a Santa Cruz dermatologist, who volunteered to speak on how to prevent and identify skin cancer. Bill LoveioySentinel "Try to be a good peer mod Dermatologist James Beckett's talk on melanoma gave lifeguards pause for thought. el," Beckett told the teen-agers.

"Ask the other kids on the beach, 'Do you have your sun tened rapt as the doctor explained the signs of skin cancer. He showed them pictures of basal cell carcinomas the most common skin cancer which appear as waxy, raised, pink papules that develop slowly. Then the more serious melanomas: dark, multicolored, irregularly shaped skin patches that can grow and change quickly. "Why did this get so bad?" Beckett asked about a picture of one man with a face full of cancerous lesions. "Well, there's a phenomenon we all know called 'denial'." BECKETT TOLD the group this is no time for denial.

These days, Beckett said, skin-damaging rays have become an even greater danger because of intense solar flares that are kicking out more rays, and the thinning ozone layer that is providing us less protection. The doctor recommended that junior lifeguards use waterproof sunscreen with an SPFrating of 15 or greater, wear good sunglasses that cut out ultraviolet light, and wear T-shirts and hats with big brims, especially between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. when the sun's rays are most intense. Beckett said he's been teaching lifeguards about sun safety for the past six years, targeting older kids who can teach younger ones.

According to some of the junior lifeguards, kids seem to be getting the message about using sunscreen. "I know a lot of people who lay out and tan, but my friends all use sunscreen," said Ga-brielle Barbie, 15, a junior lifeguard for three years. She said she uses sunscreen with an SPF of 30. Barbie said she's heard a lot about sun safety, but this was the first time she saw what skin cancer looked like and what happens when you deny that it's dangerous. FOURTEEN-year-old Nate Moore, in his first year with junior lifeguards, said he "mainly heard about this (the dangers of sun exposure) because it's getting worse." "My nose has been getting messed up," he said, so he might upgrade his sunscreen from SPF 15 to 30.

The junior lifeguards will still have plenty to teach others besides how to use sunscreen. "I know lots of kids that use sunscreen, because they think they can get a darker tan," Moore said. "But I don't think they care about skin cancer." For more information on skin cancer, contact the American Cancer Society at 209 Walnut Santa Cruz, 423-4231. screen on Help youngsters put their sunscreen on to encourage them, he advised. Fair-skinned folk should wise up Lifeguards could play an im portant role in skin cancer pre vention, Beckett said.

Doctors, he added, estimate that if more youngsters wear sunscreen as they play on the beach, the rate of skin cancer 20 years from now could drop by 75 percent. If you can get team captains and lifeguards as role models," Beckett said, "it's much better than me or parents trying to tell kids." Button up your sunscreen Scripps Howard News Service Even clothing is starting to carry a "sun protection factor," that number previously limited to sunscreens, tanning lotions and cosmetics. Frogskin, an Arizona company, manufactures a T-shirt and a long-sleeved pullover made of tightly woven nylon designed to block the sun. Most cotton fabrics let in enough sunlight to give someone a slight burn after a day at the beach. Frogskin's shirts are light-weight and fast-drying and laboratory-rated with a sun protection factor of 36, according to the manufacturers.

That's higher than the 15 SPF recommended for sunscreens. For more information, call 1-800-827-7037, or write Frogwear, P.O. Box 5288, Scotts-dale, 85261. BY THE end of summer, more than 100 teens will hear the doctor's lecture as part of their 60 hours of junior life guard training. Scripps Howard News Service LIGHT-SKINNED people are learning about the link between the sun's ultraviolet radiation and skin cancer, but there's not much evidence they're changing their sunbathing ways.

If anyone should be, it's Australians, mostly light-skinned people inhabiting a desert continent half in the tropics. They also live close enough to the Antarctic ozone hole to wonder what it's doing to the ultraviolet-absorbing layer over their heads. Yet public awareness campaigns have made no dent in Australia's sunbathing culture, according to William McCarthy, professor of surgery at the University of Sydney. Future education efforts will focus on early detection of skin cancers rather than prevention, he said. The failure is understandable.

After years of upbeat pop songs and poetry about sunshine, it's hard to adjust to it as a health hazard. People like to be in the sun, and slathering greasy sunscreen over every inch of exposed skin is nobody's idea of a fun way to launch a day at the beach. Sales of sunscreen lotion are up, but it's not clear if people are using them properly or enough. Given the decades that elapse between sun exposure and skin cancer, it could take a while to find out if the lotions are doing any good. Sunscreen technology is moving fairly Consuming these vitamins in food or supplements helps wipe out the molecular "free radicals" that can lead to cancerous tumors.

Some researchers think the same mechanism may help prevent skin damage if the anti-oxidants are rubbed into the skin. A morning-after cream that could be applied on a sunburn to repair solar damage to the skin's gene-carrying DNA has been tested with some success on rats. The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $500,000 grant for further research on the cream. Already available in some drug stores are skin patches called "sun dots" that react both to ultraviolet and to sunscreen. The dots turn red after absorbing a predetermined amount of ultraviolet, presumably encouraging a cautious retreat from the sun or a reapplication of sunscreen.

With today's sunscreens, skin cancer experts advise frequent and liberal applications of "broad spectrum" products that block 95 percent of both ultraviolet-B, or UVB (look for a "sun protection factor" of 15 or higher), and the less hazardous ultraviolet-A, or UVA. Both Consumer Reports and Longevity magazines recommend the sunscreen ingredient avobenzone as the best absorber of UVA rays. The ingredient, they say, is found in Photoplex and Filteray sunscreens. Beckett stressed the impor tance of protecting your skin while you're young. Most serious skin damage, he said, oc curs before age 20.

He flashed slides of older men and women with mottled, wrinkled, flaky complexions and skin lesions from lifetimes of sun exposure. The junior lifeguards gasped. "These changes don't happen rapidly, at least, offering hope sun protection will soon be less of a hassle. Best would be a pill or a shot you could take like a vaccine to protect your skin from the sun forever, or at least all season, but don't wait in the shade for that. More promising for the near future is development of a sunscreen with added anti-oxidants such as vitamins and and the vitamin A precursor beta carotene.

when you're young," he said to the bunch of healthy, attractive teen-agers. "The sun you get to day may not give you cancer today, but it could 30 years from now." The Junior Lifeguards lis Bee removal Science digest Tell us about your remedies for poison oak? The Sentinel would like to hear about your home remedies (or drugstore aids) for bad bouts of poison oak. Include any success stories or problems you and your family have had in neutralizing the poison plant. Write to Karen Schmidt, Sentinel Features Department, P.O. Box 638, Santa Cruz, Calif.

95061. fession since encountering AHBs, Simon said, he plans to continue doing bee removals and producing honey indefinitely. "I plan on sticking with it," he said looking down thoughtfully, putting his hands in his coverall pockets. "I'm in it pretty deep and somebody's gonna have to do it." He said bees are fascinating enough to keep generations of beekeepers enthralled their whole lives. Simon's teacher, Santa Cruz beekeeper Ormond Aebi, still tends the hives at age 75 and his beekeeper father, Harry Aebi, lived until age 94...

At 50, Simon can expect a long career ahead of him. "I've always been a nature boy," he said. "Beekeeping is a healthy pursuit and it gets better as you get older." If you have a problem with bees, call the Santa Cruz SPCA at 475-6454 for a list of local whole lot of places where bees get in." Unfortunately, Simon's regular monitoring may be the only feasible bee prevention program. "When I see scouts, I see what they're thinking and then I seal up where they want to go." A more permanent fix, Simon said, could prove impossible or cost a fortune. For Simon, however, an even greater challenge looms: aggressive Africanized honeybees (AHBs) already in Texas could arrive in Santa Cruz in the near future.

He said he believes AHBs will eventually reach here because African bees survive in a similar climate in Africa. AHBs are genetically the same as Simon's own European honeybees, but differ in their temperament. "It's like the difference between a nice person and a person with a chip on his shoulder," said Simon, who reads and writes articles for many beekeeping journals. "Afri Continued from Page CI "If nothing happens for several days," he said, "you assume they're living in the box. It's done." SIMON then will carefully transport the buzzing box of bees to one of his bee yards, in Scotts Valley or Nisene Marks.

Because the move is traumatic, however, the hive often doesn't survive, Simon said, but some bees usually mix in with his own stock. Unfortunately, bees, like weeds, sometimes return to the same spot. In another Aptos neighborhood, Simon pointed out a row of white condominiums plagued with returning bee problems because of the way the buildings were constructed. "I did a bee removal last year, and now twice this year. They need to come up with a bee prevention program because there's a canized bees show that same kind of defensive behavior." Simon explained that all bees originated from the same ancestor, just as all people did.

He downplays the nasty reputation of Africanized bees. "It's like if you had a tribe of cannibals, probably quite a few of them would turn out to be nice guys," he said, breaking out in a wide smile. IN fact, he believes beekeepers will be able to manage a large percentage of AHBs. And although it may be chaotic at first, Simon said he thinks the angry Africanized bees like many immigrants to Santa Cruz will mellow out here. "It's cooler here than they ideally like, so they'll tend to be more peaceful." AHBs, he said, are reportedly more aggressive in tropical climates.

While 60 percent of Latin American beekeepers have quit the pro Volunteers needed for quake study To explore whether the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 1989 was the precursor of another great quake, Stanford University geophysicist Simon Klemperer will create the first three-dimensional images at the San Andreas, Hayward and Calaveras faults. The two-week onshore-offshore study will record data from the Farallon Islands in the Pacific, through the Golden Gate, to Antioch in the Sacramento delta. To do this, Klemperer and his students will need volunteers to work at sea, driving small boats, deploying buoyed hydrophones, surveying and buoying receiver sites. They also need a fish biologist. Volunteers need not be earth scientists.

Training will be provided prior to the project, which begins Sept. 3. For information, call Klemperer at 415-723-8214. Africanized bees TO help educate the public about the Africanized honeybee (AHB), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has prepared some questions and answers.

swarm last October in the Rio Grande Valley near Hidalgo, Texas. In April they found and destroyed a second swarm in Alamo, Texas. It took more than 30 years for the bees to migrate from Brazil to the United States. Where did Africanized come from? How far north will they decades of exploitation of dinosaur science." Allergy hotline ready for action According to the National Weather Service's Prediction Branch, a moist, warmer-than-usual spring triggered a very early onset of the mold season. This, coupled with continued high temperatures and less-than-average summer rainfall, indicates a terrible ragweed season.

The livin' will be sneezy for 40 million allergy-sensitive people. Anticipating a much heavier volume of complaints this season, the Allergy Information Center Hotline is gearing up to provide some relief. They have eight brochures, ranging from an allergy calendar of the U.S. to an outdoors guide for allergy sufferers, a coloring book for kids and a guide to both prescription and over-the-counter allergy remedies. They also have a listing of allergy support groups and physicians associations nationwide.

The Allergy Information Center and Hotline, 800-727-5400, operates 24 hours a day. From Sentinel staff and wire services spread? named them Africanized honeybees. Q. Are AHBs the same frightening killer bees I've heard about on the news and in the movies? A Yes and no. Because of widely publicized stinging incidents, the name "killer bees" was picked up by the movie industry and the media to describe Africanized honeybees.

Some people believe these bees swoop down from the sky, en masse, causing death and destruction. This is not true. In reality the chances of being injured by an Africanized or any honeybee are far less than the chances of being hit by lightning. Dinosaurs still making history They may be extinct from the earth, but dinosaurs are still making history in TV sitcoms, fast food restaurants and toy stores. They also are making big bucks for companies that sell them.

But dinosaur diggers, struggling for research money, have a few bones to pick with the dinosaur dealers: Dinosaur models are grossly inaccurate, and none of the companies' revenues go into dinosaur research. Only 30 researchers worldwide study dinosaurs with a total budget of less that $1 million. To bring in funds and encourage accuracy in models, David Weishampel a leading expert on dinosaur anatomy and evolution at Johns Hopkins University, has helped form a non-profit organization of the world's leading dinosaur authorities and populizers. The Dinosaur Society has vowed to protect the image of the dinosaur and "put an end to bees tend to sting with less provocation and in greater numbers than other honeybees. Remember, however, that one sting from any bee can be harmful, even fatal, if the person stung is allergic to bee venom.

Such people should always carry a first-aid sting kit with them. How many stings will Afri-canized honeybees inflict if their nest is threatened? A Like all honeybees, AHBs sting only once and die shortly thereafter. However, as a group, they tend to inflict more stings than domestic honeybees because they react in greater numbers. One study shows that, in similar situations, Africanized honeybees have stinging responses ten times greater than that of domestic honeybees. Whatever the number of stings, AHBs can be very serious pests and must be treated with caution.

A Nobody knows for sure, but some scientists believe they will survive only in the southern United States where winters are mild. Others believe Africanized honeybees will survive wherever other honeybees are kept. The USDA is continuing to study the new arrivals. A In 1956 researchers in Bra- zil attempted to develop a more productive honeybee than the European one. Honeybee queens from Africa, whose offspring were presumably better suited for Brazilian conditions, were imported and established in test colonies in Sao Paolo.

Subsequently, 26 African bee swarms escaped into the Brazilian countryside where the queens interbred with the more docile resident European honeybees. The offspring of these "mismat-ings" defend their nests more vigorously than European bees and swarm more often. Researchers Is one stine from an Afri- "canized honeybee deadly? When did the AHB reach the United States? A One sting from an AHB is no more painful or dangerous than a sting from any other honeybee, but Africanized honey USDA officials detected and destroyed the first AHB.