Over 80% of sunscreen performed below their labelled efficacy (2020)

Independent lab testing of consumer packaged goods is so important, expensive, unprofitable, and downright risky from a libel standpoint that I dare say it should be the role of government to do it.

Yes, because government inspectors are flawless and would never take bribes to let things pass or force them to fail. Nope, they'd never do that.

You essentially describe the motivation for Stiftung Warentest [0]. They’re massively successful in Germany, and I rely on their tests for many consumer goods I buy. Access isn’t free though, typically costs around 5EUR per test. Coincidentally, they recently tested sunscreen [1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest

[1] https://www.test.de/Test-Sonnencreme-und-Sonnenspray-fuer-Er...

False implication and assuming private companies with solely a profit motive are themselves angels.

...

oh, excuse me. "No siree, never would a for-profit company put out false products, nope, not ever"

Certainly a flawed system is better than an outright broken one? At least the former can be improved.

Feels like one of those classic cases where the market alone can't sort it out, and strong public infrastructure should step in

In the US I like labdoor.com and examine.com and ewg.org but they’re not nearly what I’d like them to be.

EDIT: to clarify, of the three only labdoor does independent testing