As we near the end of National Melanoma and Skin Cancer Prevention Month, a combination of news reports have summoned our inner (and outer) pale nanny to pose the nagging question: Do we need to ban tanning booths for teens?
First, for the skeptics — and that’s not necessarily the girls get
ting the tans — more research shows definitively that indoor tanning is linked with melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer.
The link between indoor tanning and cancer is clear, said Tim Turnham of the Melanoma Research Foundation. People who have used tanning machines are 74 percent more likely than others to develop melanoma, according to a 2010 study.
Since 1992, rates of melanoma have risen 3 percent a year in white women ages 15 to 39, according to the American Cancer Society. About 35 percent of 17-year-old girls use tanning machines, according to the FDA, USA Today reported.
More young survivors of melanoma are speaking out against tanning beds. But even those warnings may not be heard by their peers. Samantha Hessel, 21, said: “I knew about the risk but I was in denial. I thought, ‘That’s not going to affect me.'” After years of going to tanning salons, she was diagnosed with melanoma at 19.
Hessel’s former attitude is common among tanners, according to a new poll. An online survey by the American Academy of Dermatology found that most females (86 percent) who reported using an indoor tanning bed in the last year knew it could increase the risk of skin cancer, the Los Angeles Times reported. And 48 percent of the indoor tanners knew someone with skin cancer or someone who’d had it.
Still, to the tanners, the cosmetic reasons outweigh the risk.
Part of the problem, according to yet another survey, is that “many white teen girls and young women who use indoor tanning beds have mothers who also use tanning beds,” HealthDay News reported.
Many health experts want indoor tanning banned for children, even with a parent’s consent. The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Dermatology and World Health Organization all have called on states to ban children under 18 from tanning salons, USA Today reported. New York is considering such a ban, which would be the first in the country.
The Indoor Tanning Association, an industry group, opposes that, or any such legislation.
The similarities to tobacco are too great to ignore. The least we can do is keep kids from accessing a known, legal carcinogen — even, or especially, if their parents won’t.
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