Corals are being attacked by substance from sunscreen creams

A new study published last Tuesday by Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology found that a chemical commonly used in personal care and hygiene products, such as sunscreen creams, poses an ecological threat to corals and coral reefs, endangering their very survival.

Oxybenzone (also known as BP-3 or benzophenone-3) is present in more than 3, 500 sunscreen products worldwide. Coral reef contamination occurs through divers using sunscreens and wastewater discharges from municipal estuaries and coastal septic systems.

The research was conducted by a team of marine scientists from Virginia, Florida, Israel, the US National Aquarium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was published less than a fortnight after NOAA announced that the third largest coral bleaching phenomenon in history is taking place.

Coral undergoing bleaching process - Image: NOAA

The study is titled “Toxicopathological Effects of Oxybenzone (Benzophenone-3) UV Sunscreen Filter on Cultured Coral Cells and Primary Cells, and Environmental Contamination in Hawaii and the US Virgin Islands”. It demonstrates that exposure of seedlings (coral larvae) to oxybenzone causes severe morphological deformation, DNA damage and, even more alarmingly, acts as an endocrine disruptor. The latter causes the coral to encapsulate in its own skeleton, which eventually causes its death.

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