Effect of ozone variation on disease in Great Britain: I. Skin cancer.

Ozone levels were rising during the period 1951 to 1972 and resulted in decreased levels of solar ultraviolet radiation reaching sea level. Analysis of the records of skin cancers for Bristol and Oxford in England showed that during the first decade of this period incidence and mortality for the skin carcinomas, basal cell and squamous cell, fell in line with theory; but both incidence and mortality for melanoma inexplicably rose. Figures for the second decade show that the data were dominated by trends other than those possibly attributable to ozone change.