Rowan Jacobsen

Sunlight Advice Should Weigh Total Mortality, Not Skin Cancer Alone

Author Rowan Jacobsen tells Russ Roberts that public-health advice has treated sun exposure too narrowly as a skin-cancer problem, when the relevant question should be total health and mortality. Jacobsen accepts that sunlight can cause skin cancer and that burns should be avoided, but argues that moderate exposure may also confer benefits, especially through mechanisms such as nitric oxide and cardiovascular effects. Roberts presses the limits of the evidence, leaving the case as a tradeoff rather than a reversal: sunlight is risky, but zero exposure may not be the safest default.