Proposed law would shut minors out of tanning beds
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SALEM, Ore. – Due to the health risks, especially from cancer, some Oregon lawmakers want to ban anyone under 18 years old from using commercial tanning beds, tanning booths, or sun lamps.
Under a proposal known as House Bill 2896, the only way someone under 18 could use a tanning bed would be if they had a doctor's note. The bill was introduced on Monday.
Oregon has the fourth highest rate of death from skin cancer in the United States, according to Dr. Brian Druker at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
Indoor tanning increases the risk by 20 percent, Druker said in an online post that cites an 2012 study.
Katie Williams said she started using a tanning bed at age 16 while in high school. Seven years later, she had developed skin cancer.
“Luckily, I caught the melanoma in time,” Williams said. “It could have killed me when I was 23.
Druker also posted that another study found that using a tanning device before age 35 increases the risk of skin cancer by 75 percent.
Druker is the director of the Knight Cancer Institute at OHSU.
While the idea of banning teens from tanning sounds good at first, if you really think about what that means, it really doesn't make sense. What would it do? Prohibit a teen from tanning in a salon, but how would it help with a teen that uses a home unit or decides, without access to a salon, they will go out in the sun for an extended period of time? These are the methods that are the most dangerous way of getting a tan. A salon is more controlled and responsible with the way they handle UV exposure. There are limits on how often and how long a person can tan based on a person's skin type. The fairest skin type is turned away from salons because there is far too much risk for burning and THAT is what needs to be avoided to reduce the risk of skin cancer. If a person uses a home unit, there is no one there to stop them from staying in for extended periods of time and any skin type person would be able to tan. So taking the option of a salon away from teens may result in them seeking other means of tanning and those other means are not regulated or controlled. I would also like to point out the statistic cited in this article about tanning before 35 increases the risk of skin cancer by 75 percent is very skewed. The study was conducted by the World Health Organization and the break down of how they get to that number is very important to know. The study lumped salons, home units and units used by Dermatologists to treat non life threatening skin conditions. Of those 3 sources of tanning statistics, home units increased risk by approximately 35 percent, Dermatologist's phototherapy units increased risk by over 90 percent, Salon units did not show a significant increase in risk. SO if they argue that statistic to ban teens from using salons, they are NOT decreasing the skin cancer risk. They cite this 75 percent number all the time but don't tell you what makes up those numbers and that in order to make it that alarming amount they HAD to include data from other sources like the home units and Dr. units.