Tanning Beds Rated As Top-Tier Cancer Risk
LYON, FRANCE – Tanning beds are as deadly as mustard gas, arsenic, plutonium and other known carcinogens, international cancer experts have ruled.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer yesterday moved UV tanning beds and ultraviolet radiation to its highest cancer risk category. The move was based on a comprehensive review of studies, which found the risk of skin melanoma increases by 75 per cent when the use of tanning devices starts before the age of 30.
The report, by the agency’s Cancer Monograph Working Group, was published in the medical journal Lancet Oncology. The agency is the cancer arm of the World Health Organization.
Cancer experts and advocacy groups welcomed the elevated classification. “This is important … it is another piece of evidence one can point to from a very conservative and eminent body,” says Dr. David Hogg, a cancer physician at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. “It doesn’t change my opinion, which is that tanning beds are a dangerous carcinogen and should not be used at all.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. In 2009, some 5,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with it and almost 1,000 will die.
The Canadian Cancer Society is advocating for mandated standards for staff who operate tanning beds, a government-run registry of tanning equipment use, and restrictions on advertising to youth, such as ads promoting pre-prom tanning. Last year, Ontario MPP Khalil Ramal introduced a private member’s bill calling for a similar ban, which is before the standing committee on social policy.
In addition to the ban, the Society is encouraging the government to implement a number of other measures to protect youth from exposure to ultraviolet rays:
• Restrictions around marketing targeting youth to ensure the artificial tanning industry isn’t targeting youth through school yearbooks and newspapers.
• A registry developed and maintained by the Government of Ontario to ensure we know which businesses have artificial tanning equipment.
• A training program developed in Ontario to ensure all staff operating artificial tanning equipment know how to identify people at greater risk of developing skin cancer.
• Signage requirements to ensure the risks of artificial tanning are clearly posted in view of each piece of tanning equipment.
Steven Gilroy, executive director of the Joint Canadian Tanning Association, which represents 1,200 tanning salons across Canada, dismissed the international agency’s report. “When you dive into the research … there is no increased risk,” he says. The tanning industry has recently promoted the moderate use of artificial tanning as a way to boost vitamin D levels, which tanning proponents say may be associated with lower risk of some forms of cancer.
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