You Might Have Sunscreen In Your Blood — But Don't Freak Out Just Yet
This article for InStyle is an example of the importance of maintaining good relationships.
Last year I spent a good deal of time reporting and writing a story that was to appear in the fall print edition of a major women's magazine. I was thrilled. But after a series of events the piece was killed and sadly I haven't been able to re-sell the story. Though I regret the waste of time for me, my editors, and my sources, these things just sometimes happen.
Through it all I very much enjoyed working with my editor there, so when she moved to InStyle I took note. For a long time I didn't have anything that I thought would fit, but one day while reading through a list of upcoming articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) I found a bit of research that I thought InStyle readers would be interested in. In a small study, researchers found that the major components of chemical sunscreens move through people's skin into their blood, and that these chemicals build up over time. This had never been proven before, and was enough of a big deal that the JAMA published an editorial to accompany the research. In that editorial I learned that sunscreen hasn't yet been tested for much of anything. I pitched the story to my former editor and she agreed.
They study was small and limited, so we did not want to over-hype the results, but it was well-done and also importantly IN HUMANS. Some science writers and journalists steer away from women's fashion magazines, but I think that everyone needs and deserves informed health and wellness information, and their readership is huge. I am proud of my first InStyle byline. Here is the result:
