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by jsmthrowaway 3700 days ago
The presence of a sunburn is orthogonal to the fact that you do, in fact, become exposed to radiation in sunlight. That is unequivocally true and trivially proven, whether you receive a sunburn or not.

I don't think the person you are replying to meant that sunlight exposure unconditionally causes cancer, and was simply addressing radiation scare and putting it in context.

1 comments

All the downvotes notwithstanding, there is a direct correlation between the number of severe burns you've had and your chances of getting skin cancer[0], unless you have a genetic predisposition to skin cancer.

A moderate amount of sunlight on skin, without burning, is actually healthy for you, unless you 1) have various illnesses (lupus, for one), or 2) are genetically predisposed to skin cancer.

[0] http://www.webmd.com/melanoma-skin-cancer/news/20140530/5-or...