Dismissively tossing a tube of sunscreen over his shoulder, a bare-chested TikTok influencer declares that the cream causes cancer. He instead promotes “regular sun exposure” to his 400,000 followers — contradicting US dermatologists fighting a surge in such dubious misinformation. In the midst of a blazing summer, some social media influencers are offering potentially dangerous advice on sun protection, despite stepped-up warnings from health experts about over-exposure amid rising rates of skin cancer.
Further undermining public health, videos — some garnering millions of views — share “homemade” recipes that use ingredients such as beef tallow, avocado butter and beeswax for what is claimed to provide effective skin protection. In one viral TikTok video , “transformation coach” Jerome Tan discards a commercial cream and tells his followers that eating natural foods will allow the body to make its “own sunscreen.” He offers no scientific evidence for this.
Such online misinformation is increasingly causing real-world harm, experts say. One in seven American adults under 35 think daily sunscreen use is more harmful than direct sun exposure, and nearly a quarter believe staying hydrated can prevent a sunburn, according to a survey this year by Ipsos for the Orlando Health Cancer Institute. “People buy into a lot of really dangerous ideas that put them at added risk,” warned Rajesh Nair, an oncology surgeon with the institute.
‘No safe tan’ As influencers increasingly cast doubt on commercial sunscreen products, another US survey showed a dip in their use, with some 75 percent of Americans using sunscreen regularly, down from 79 percent in 2022. The findings coincide with other trends showing rising public mistrust of established medical guidance — including on Covid-19 and other vaccines — and increasing reliance on influencers with little or no scientific knowledge. Dermatologists are scrambling to disabuse people of the increasingly popular perception that higher levels of sun exposure are good for the skin.
“There is no safe tan,” Daniel Bennett, a dermatologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told AFP. “The evidence that ultraviolet light exposure is the primary preventable driver of skin cancer is overwhelming,” he added. Many of the misleading or false claims come from influencers seeking to monetize their content on social media platforms, an echo chamber where sensational and false claims often drive engagement, experts say.
Some content creators are leveraging “sunscreen skepticism” to “sell their own supplements or endorse alternative all-natural sunscreens,” Eric Dahan, founder of the influencer marketing agency Mighty Joy, told AFP. ‘Sun paranoia’ Dahan pointed out one Instagram post that advised against “wearing sunscreen constantly” while promoting a range of skincare products. “Say goodbye to sun paranoia,” the emoji-laden post said.
“Catch some (guilt-free) rays this summer.” Clutching a surfboard on a beach, another bare-chested Instagram influencer says he rejects sunscreen. “Do I worry about skin cancer? I do not,” he posted, while promoting “animal-based sunscreen” made from beef tallow.
Tallow — essentially rendered, purified beef fat — alone has no ability to block ultraviolet radiation, said Megan Poynot Couvillion, a dermatologist practicing in Texas. “I don’t see a problem with using it on the skin as an emollient, but absolutely not as a sunscreen,” she told AFP. The US Food and Drug Administration has called for more research into the ingredients in commercial sunscreens, but it does recommend their use, noting that excessive sun exposure is a major contributor to skin cancer.
Homemade sunscreens “lack effective sun protection,” leaving users vulnerable to sunburn, premature skin aging and skin cancer, the American Academy of Dermatology warns. Some influencers’ recipes include zinc oxide, a known sun protector. But concocting sunscreen at home that will effectively block UV radiation is unrealistic, said Adam Friedman, professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
“There’s no way you’re making this in your basement,” Friedman told AFP. Israeli warplanes killed three people in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hodeida, the Iran-backed rebels said Sunday after the group’s deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv. The strikes on the vital port, which triggered a raging fire and plumes of black smoke, are the first claimed by Israel in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest country, about 2,000 kilometers (1,300 miles) away, analysts said.
“The blood of Israeli citizens has a price,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, adding more operations against the Houthis would follow “if they dare to attack us”. Gallant said the Hodeida strikes were also a warning to other Iran-backed armed groups around the Middle East that have claimed attacks on Israel during the Gaza war. “The fire that is currently burning in Hodeida, is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” he said.
The Israeli strikes killed three people and wounded 87, the rebel-run health ministry said in a statement carried by Houthi media. The ministry said earlier that most of the wounded had severe burns. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the warning in a televised address.
“Anyone who harms us will pay a very heavy price for their aggression,” he said. Just hours after Friday’s strike in Tel Aviv, Gallant had vowed Israel would retaliate against the Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, including much of its Red Sea coast. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said F-15 jets carried out the strike and all returned safely to base.
Rear Admiral Hagari accused the Houthis of using Hodeida “as a main supply route for the transfer of Iranian weapons...
like the (drone) that was used in the attack on Friday”. ‘Brutal aggression’ In a statement on social media, top Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam reported a “brutal Israel aggression against Yemen”. The attack targeted “fuel storage facilities and a power plant” in Hodeida “to pressure Yemen to stop supporting” Palestinians in the Gaza war, he said.
An AFP correspondent in Hodeida reported hearing several large explosions and seeing smoke over the port. Footage aired by the rebels’ Al-Masirah television, which AFP could not independently verify, showed casualties being treated in hospital, many of them bandaged and lying on stretchers in packed rooms. A man interviewed by the broadcaster said many of the wounded were port employees.
“The city is dark, people are on the streets, petrol stations are closed and seeing long queues,” said a Hodeida resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing safety concerns. Maritime security firm Ambrey said it observed four merchant vessels in the port at the time of the air strike and another eight in the anchorage. “No damage to merchant vessels has been reported at this time,” it said.
Yemen aid lifeline fears The United States, which along with Britain has carried out several rounds of air strikes against the Houthis in an attempt to put an end to their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, said it played no part in Saturday’s strikes. “The United States was not involved in today’s strikes in Yemen, and we did not coordinate or assist Israel with the strikes,” a US National Security Council spokesman said. “We’ve been in regular and ongoing contact with the Israelis following the strike in Tel Aviv that killed an Israeli civilian on Friday morning.
We fully recognise and acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defence.” UN chief Antonio Guterres had appealed for “maximum restraint” after the Tel Aviv drone strike to avoid “further escalation in the region”. But Houthi politburo member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti swiftly threatened revenge for the Hodeida strikes.
“The Zionist entity will pay the price for targeting civilian facilities, and we will meet escalation with escalation,” he said in a post on social media. The Houthis’ Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, warned that the Israeli strikes on Hodeida marked a dangerous turn nine months into the Gaza war. “The foolish step taken by the Zionist enemy heralds a new, dangerous phase,” said the group, which has exchanged nearly daily fire with the Israeli army throughout the war.
Hodeida port, a vital entry point for imports and international aid for rebel-held areas of Yemen, had remained largely untouched through the decade-long war between the Houthis and the internationally recognised government propped up by neighbouring Saudi Arabia. The war has left millions of Yemenis dependent on aid supplied through the port. “Traders now fear that this will exacerbate the already critical food security and humanitarian situation in northern Yemen, as the majority of trade flows through this port,” said Mohammed Albasha, senior Middle East analyst for the US-based Navanti Group.
CONTINUE READING Show less Donald Trump commanded the stage for nearly two hours Saturday in his first rally since a gunman tried to kill him last week, with a fiery, rambling speech to thousands of passionate supporters. Here are five takeaways from the vision painted by the Republican presidential nominee for the United States: ‘Shoveling ballots into wheelbarrows’ Last week’s Republican National Convention notably downplayed Trump’s persistent lie that the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was stolen from him. But when Trump returned to the campaign trail Saturday night he did not hold back.
“The Radical Left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024,” he said, in just one of his references to voter fraud. “We want a landslide that is too big to rig,” he added later. He warned those who voted early to “follow your vote” and insisted that 2020 saw some states “shoveling ballots into wheelbarrows, moving them around.
” And the crowd cheered as he called on them to “Fight, fight, fight.” That evoked both the moments after his attempted assassination last Saturday — when, bloodied and surrounded by Secret Service agents, he raised a fist in the air and shouted “fight” — and his comments before the 2021 Capitol riot, when he warned supporters “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” ‘I’m not an extremist at all’ Trump also again disavowed Project 2025, a shadow manifesto characterized by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.
“The other side is going around trying to make me sound extreme ...
I’m not an extremist at all,” he complained. The sweeping blueprint from the hardline Heritage Foundation to remake the federal government in Trump’s image was created by “the radical right..
. they’re seriously extreme,” he said, insisting “I don’t know what the hell it is.” The official Republican platform ratified at the Milwaukee convention is less conservative than Project 2025 in several areas, including abortion and entitlements.
But many of the more extreme proposals in the Heritage Foundation handbook are indistinguishable from Trump’s remarks at his rallies and his own video statements, while Democrats say members of his inner circle have been linked to it. Still Trump insisted the idea that he is a “threat to democracy” is “misinformation.” “Last week, I took a bullet for democracy,” he said.
‘Stupid’ Biden Trump also laid in to the crisis engulfing rival Biden’s candidacy, as Democrats fearing that at 81 the president is too old to serve for another four years pressure him to step off the ticket. “They have no idea who they candidate is ..
. Sort of interesting, this guy goes and he gets the votes and now they want to take it away. That’s democracy,” Trump said in Michigan.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said, had turned on the president “like a dog.” Branding Biden “stupid” and “a low-IQ individual,” he also denigrated Vice President Kamala Harris — who, if the president steps aside, is in a strong position to take over — as “crazy.” – ‘Beautiful’ note from Xi – Trump again touted his relationships with autocrats around the globe, insisting of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un that getting along had made the United States safer.
“All he wants to do is buy nuclear weapons and make them,” he said of Kim. “I said, just relax, chill. You’ve got enough.
You got, you got so much nuclear weapons, so much, I said, just relax...
let’s go to a baseball game.” He called Hungarian President Viktor Orbán a “very powerful leader” and again insisted that, had he been U.S.
leader, President Vladimir Putin of Russia would never have invaded Ukraine in 2022. And he said he received a “beautiful note” after the assassination attempt from President Xi Jinping of China, calling him a “great guy.” He said he had told reporters that Xi was “a brilliant man.
He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” ‘Migrant crime’ Trump also unleashed a litany of threats against illegal migrants, decrying an “invasion” over the U.
S. border and again suggesting that Democrats were allowing it to happen in hope of using their votes. On day one of his return to the Oval Office, he promised to launch “largest deportation operation in the history of our country.
“When I return to the White House, we will stop the plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of our American suburb cities,” he continued. “We’re going to get the bad ones out. We’re going to get them out immediately.
It’s not going to take long.” He promised to “crush migrant crime” and complained that countries such as Venezuela are “dumping their criminals into the United States of America, and we’re not going to take it anymore.” CONTINUE READING Show less A Donald Trump ally is under fire after calling Texas Rep.
Sheila Jackson Lee, who served her Houston district for nearly 3 decades before dying of cancer at the age of 74, a "ghetto b----." Raw Story reported on Friday that Lee, who shared publicly in June she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, had died. Laura Loomer, who has been repeatedly praised by the former president for digging up dirt on his political enemies, seized on the unfortunate development.
"Even on her death bed, this ghetto b---- couldn’t keep President Trump’s name out of her disgusting mouth. I’d say rest in peace, but we all know lying democrats who have destroyed our country are going to hell," Loomer said Friday. "Sheila Jackson Lee will be remembered as a destructive force in America and one of the most low IQ members of Congress in the history of our nation.
" ALSO READ: How much access did $50,000 buy someone at the Republican National Convention? She concluded, "Today she died. Instead of spending her final moments with her family, she was talking shit about Trump on X and spewing more lies. She won’t be missed.
But, I’m sure she will still be voting Democrat this November. Good riddance!" N.Y.
congressman Ritchie Torres called Loomer out Saturday. " Laura Loomer, a Donald Trump supporter, refers to a Black Congress Member who passed away as a “ghetto b----.” "These are the words of rabid racist who represents everything that is rancid and rotten about the far right," the lawmaker added.
"There is a special place in hell for Laura Loomer." Republicans Against Trump said, "Trump ally Laura Loomer celebrates the death of Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last night from cancer, calling her a "ghetto b----" and saying, "good riddance." "Loomer, is a major figure in the MAGA world and well connected to Donald Trump," the account added.
"Following his speech at the RNC Convention, Trump blew her a kiss from the stage. She is not fringe. This is MAGA!" Former GOP lawmaker Adam Kinzinger said, "I don’t think 'heaven bound' people tweet things like this.
" For her part, Loomer said she stands by her controversial online comments. CONTINUE READING Show less.
