From ALEC VANS
Talk about an idea whose time has come. I remember dermatologists trying
to warn anyone who would listen that sunbathing was bad for the skin, producing
wrinkles and other signs of premature ageing, back in the 1930s. I remember
less well when I first heard that sunlight might also cause skin cancer,
but the idea was certainly current in 1949/50, when I spent a couple of
years in Australia.
This is not some sudden ecological dawning of the light, but a long-standing
menace. Of course thinning of the ozone layer makes the whole subject even
more urgent. But the increases in cases of malignant melanoma could and
should have been avoided if the experts had done their stuff in warning
people, even in the face of the apathy which normally greets such warnings
at first.
Alec Vans Newnham, Gloucestershire
