Nearly three dozen states now have laws designed to keep youngsters 18 and under out of indoor tanning beds, but they’ve generally proved unsuccessful. That rightly worries public health officials, physicians and parents concerned about the rising number of often fatal skin cancers among the young. Consequently, a panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommends tough new laws to help protect kids from the risks of tanning beds. The FDA should heed the experts’ advice.
The need for new controls is increasingly apparent. A study by the World Health Organization links the devices to skin cancer. The investigation, in fact, showed that some skin cancers, including the most deadly, can increase by 75 percent in individuals who use tanning beds in their teens and in their 20s, though the damage often doesn’t show up for years. The FDA has regulated sunlamps — the heart of tanning beds — for two decades or more, but that’s proved of little value in setting industry-wide standards, or in combating cancer. The answer, the FDA advisory group rightly suggests, is to adopt more stringent rules.
That makes sense, particularly in the case of youngsters. Public health officials and the Indoor Tanning Association, who agree on very little else, do agree that about 30 million people a year regularly visit the nation’s tens of thousands of indoor tanning businesses. About three-quarters of those visitors, they also agree, are teenage girls and women up to age 30. That demographic and its intersection with recent cancer statistics is cause for alarm.
Dr. William James, president of the American Academy of Dermatology Association, explains the connection. He told the panel that his group has seen a startling increase in skin cancers — often-treatable basal and squamous cell cancers as well as the more dangerous melanoma — in recent years among women in their teens and in their 20s. “What was formally considered a disease of older men is ballooning in young women, the very target audience and number one customer of the tanning industry.”
The remedy suggested by the FDA advisers contains several parts and, if adopted, would serve the public interest. The tighter controls could include requiring parental consent forms or an outright ban on the use of tanning beds for younger teens. The panel also recommended the FDA add bolder warning labels to the tanning beds and to change how they are regulated. The latter is especially important if the FDA is serious about reducing the risk of cancer.
At the moment, tanning machines are regulated by the FDA, but as Class I medical devices, which includes tongue depressors, dental floss and bandages. In other words, the beds are not heavily regulated at all. The panel recommends a Class II designation, which would make it possible for the agency to order changes in their design and to limit the amount of radiation they emit. Those are sound suggestions.
The panel’s recommendations are not unreasonable. Indeed, many states have adopted the regulations proposed by the advisory group. Not all states have done so, though. New FDA regulations, however, would apply nationally, creating a uniform code that should be relatively easy to police and to enforce.
It’s hardly a surprise that ITA opposes the restrictions proposed by the advisory panel. A spokesman says the connection between tanning beds and skin cancer has yet to be proved and that any illnesses or injuries connected to tanning beds are caused by improper use of the machines rather than the tanning beds themselves. Those arguments are hard to sustain, given current scientific research and the industry’s history.
Many claims about the benefits and safety of tanning machines have been disproved. Indeed, earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission charged the ITA with making false claims about the health benefits of its products. The group did not fight the charge. It settled with the government and removed the ads from circulation.
Existing laws governing indoor tanning facilities have failed to adequately protect the public. Stricter regulation of tanning beds and tougher enforcement of those laws is justified. The FDA’s prompt adoption of the advisory panel’s recommendations likely will help reduce the growing occurrence of deadly skin cancers.