Princeton Consumer Research lab tested all eight sunscreens that failed SPF claims

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A consumer group Choice review shows Princeton Consumer Research carried out tests for certification for at least eight sunscreens that fell short of their advertised SPF50 claims.

Transcript

00:00We went back to the sunscreens that were tested by Choice and found that at least eight of

00:09the ones that underperformed in the Choice testing had all used one particular overseas

00:14lab to get their original SPF certification before they were allowed to be sold in Australia.

00:20That lab is called Princeton Consumer Research.

00:24We got our hands on some of those SPF test results and we ran them past some experts

00:28both here in Australia and overseas and they pretty much unanimously found that they had

00:33some questions and concerns about those results.

00:36To understand what they were saying you sort of have to know a little bit about SPF testing.

00:41Usually there's about 10 test subjects that are used and they have some UV radiation exposed

00:47to some skin with some sunscreen on it and some skin that doesn't have sunscreen on it

00:51and then those readings are used to calculate an SPF number for each of the test volunteers.

00:56Now experts say with 10 people you would expect those results to vary a little bit but in

01:00a lot of these labs results there was a lack of variation in those.

01:04So one of the test reports for example had nine volunteers that all got exactly the same

01:09SPF value down to the decimal point.

01:11In some of the other reports it was eight that had the identical result and so experts have

01:17said that that's a little bit surprising.

01:18They have been careful to say that it's not impossible to have identical results lining up

01:22like that and it is possible that that could happen but they couldn't explain it.

01:26One of the experts that I spoke to said it's unusual to see them lining up that cleanly

01:30and he'd be asking the lab you know how did they get those results.

01:34We did go back to the lab and they said that it is uncommon to have them lining up in that

01:40way but it does happen and that's what's happened in the case of the test reports that the ABC

01:45has seen but it did say that you know for a high-performing product in a test environment

01:51you know that can happen and that their process their processes are robust and verifiable.

01:57Yeah really interesting. I gather your investigation has also thrown up more details

02:02about one of the company's technical directors. What can you tell us?

02:07So these SPF test reports usually have a principal investigator that signs off

02:11on the report and on the a lot of the reports that we saw from Princeton Consumer Research

02:16that person was a man called Barry Drewitt. In 2010 he was disqualified from being a company

02:22director in the UK for eight years for his role in a previous testing firm. That firm Uriderm Research

02:29went into liquidation in 2008 with debts of more than half a million pounds. Separately to that,

02:34Mr Drewitt was accused of fabricating clinical trial data in 2006 and 2007 and was charged over that

02:41in 2011. However the UK regulator didn't present any evidence in court on those charges and they

02:47were thrown out and the judge ordered the jury to find Mr Drewitt and his co-defendants not guilty

02:52and the ABC is not inferring any wrongdoing in relation to that. When we contacted Mr Drewitt about

02:57it he was emphatic that any wrongdoing from that matter you know inferring that would be deeply misleading

03:03and that none of this has anything to do with any bearing on the company that he currently works at which

03:09is Princeton Consumer Research which is the lab that we're talking about today. Okay Rachel what do

03:14you think it means for customers? Look I think it means that we need to look to the experts on this.

03:21I mean I think people are pretty passionate about their sunscreens. That's something that's very clear

03:25from the stories about sunscreens that we've seen over the last few weeks and that's a good thing because

03:29Australia has very high rates of skin cancer. The Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, is the body

03:36responsible for regulating sunscreens. They require that sunscreens go and get this SPF testing done

03:41before they're sold in Australia but they don't actually have any oversight of the third-party labs

03:45that do that so it'll be interesting to see with this confusion around SPF results you know what what

03:50action can be taken there. Some of the sunscreen brands have told us that they are going to another

03:55lab altogether to get their sunscreens tested again and I think that indicates that they're taking it

04:00pretty seriously but I think probably for consumers the most important thing is that don't throw out

04:07your sunscreen. You should still be using sunscreen even if you've got a sunscreen that is you think

04:12maybe not SPF 50. Institutions like the Melanoma Institute are so keen for Australians to know that

04:19the difference between SPF 50 and SPF 25 is not as great as many people would think. It still provides

04:25protection. The most important thing is to make sure you put enough on which many Australians don't do to

04:30reapply it regularly to wear a hat and sunglasses and long sleeves and seek shade and keep wearing sunscreen.

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