Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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Today is May 18th, 20206, and my guest is author Rowan Jacobson.

He was last here in October of 2021, talking about his book Trufflehound.

That episode tied for first place in our annual poll of favorite episodes of the year.

His latest book is, In Defense of Sunlight, the

surprising science of sun exposure. We're on welcome back to Econ Talk.

Thanks, it's great to be back. I hope I get another first place this year. Well, we'll see.

You might have to rig the voting like you did the last.

Or multiple times, yeah. We're going to be talking about a number of issues related to health.

I want to remind listeners, we do not dispense medical advice on this show, even though I am a doctor.

I'm not the kind that helps people, as we all know.

I'm a doctor of philosophy and economics.

You should take everything you hear with a grain or more of salt, but this is a very interesting,

provocative and contrary intake on what for a long time was received wisdom.

So let's get started.

What's the central idea of this book wrong?

The basic idea is that we are now at a point where enough science is filled in that we need to reconsider what has been, as you say, the sort of the perceived wisdom on sun exposure, that the recommendations we've received for the past few decades no longer

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