‘A spot under my eye was skin cancer – VAT on sunscreen needs to be scrapped’
Jessica was a normal day when he was in his Zbin-Webster office, drawing his eyes and noticing that his hand was covered with blood.
For months, he was aware of a lesion on his face, but he had a problematic skin at the beginning of his late young people and his twenty years, assuming that he was a blocked pore.
Nevertheless, in 2018, Mrs. Zbinden-Webster from London realized that something more serious after falling into the hands of the skin and received a GP appointment the next day.
“He was diagnosed on -site,” he said Independent. “He was an ordinary GP, not a dermatologist, but he could immediately see that the most common type of skin cancer was a basal cell carcinoma.”
Later, 26 years old, the tumor had surgery that took out the lower eyelid after being found much deeper than expected at the beginning, and in the following years, a skin graft and a few laser surgery required a few laser surgery.
“I was full shock. I was in the middle of the twenties and the last thing I expected was the diagnosis of cancer. I didn’t have any history in any skin cancer family and I never used sunbeds.
Now he suspects that this was due to the fact that he was burned as a child during his family holidays, and since then he has learned that the damage in childhood has been “very strong ,, and a fluffy skin burning doubles your chances of capturing the disease.
After receiving the doctor’s advice to wear sunscreen regularly, he began to buy the product regularly and noticed that he started to save costs.
“I was getting too much sunscreen and I was wondering ‘Is everyone spending so much? How do people living under the poverty limit meet this? Is it possible even in their budgets?’ He said.
During this research, the sunscreen realized that it was classified as a cosmetic, not as a medical necessity, that is, it was taxed with 20 percent VAT loaded to each bottle.
“I was scared. We pay 20 percent more for a life -saving product. Household pricing outside the sunscreen and in principle sends a really harmful message about sun safety to our public health.”
Melanoma is the fastest increasing type of cancer in England with about 17,500 new cases each year. Skin cancer experts at Cancer Research UK estimates that this figure will rise to 26,500 by 2038-2040, while Melanoma is currently fifth common cancer.
Meanwhile, approximately 4,000 cases in the UK are linked to deprivation each year.
“NHS spends half a billion pounds every year to treat skin cancer,” he said. “We need to change the situation from the root. This is an impact on a skin cancer crisis and thousands of people and costs millions of taxpayers.”
Since the start of the Chane.org campaign #Axethespftax, he has received more than 52,000 signatures and received support from leading dermatologists.
The open letter, which called on the government to re -classify the sunscreen as a basic health item, was supported by the leading politicians, including reform British leader Nigel Farage and Lib Dem Lüman Sir Ed Davey.
Now 33 years old and open from cancer, Rachel Reeves hoped to scrape the VAT during the upcoming autumn budget and promised to continue lobbying until it became a government policy.
“There was more deaths than the UK’s skin cancer, the world’s capital of the world, Australia.
“There is a culture of sun safety, and this is what we need to imitate here in the UK. We have a control of a skin cancer crisis, but we can reverse it.”
