The Same Old Media Hype?

The International Agency for Research on Cancer recently released a report classifying tanning beds as "Group 1 - Carcinogenic to humans". The press grabbed on to this and equated it to other things in the same category – arsenic and mustard gas - without reading or understanding the content of the report.  It was nothing more than sensational headline-grabbing.  Now - let's put everything into some kind of perspective:

• The sun has been in this category since 1992. It's only logical that tanning beds, which emit the same type of light, be included in the same group. And it's always been accepted that OVERexposure to ultraviolet light from the sun or other sources presents a problem.

• Other members of this "deadly" group include red wine, beer, birth control pills and mineral oil among others.  If using a tanning bed is as dangerous as taking arsenic or mustard gas then so is drinking red wine or taking the pill, which logically means that we should be able to say that having a beer as dangerous as drinking arsenic, or taking birth control pills is as dangerous as breathing mustard gas. It's the same thing, isn't it?  You can't really condemn one item on the list without going after the others.

• The criteria to be labelled a carcinogen does not take into account the dosage of a substance required to increase risk - which means that the listing only indicts sunburn, not non-burning exposure. According to the report, "The Report does not present quantitative assessments of carcinogenic risk. Listing of substances in the Report, therefore, does not establish that such substances present carcinogenic risks to individuals in their daily lives." The report also did not take into account the dosage required to increase risk. By leaving out this information, they pretty much made the list meaningless.

• "Risk increases 75%"?

  • Let's examine the 75% risk increase and what it means with this example: Your relative risk of getting a fatal form or skin cancer is 0.12%. If that number increases by 75%, then your relative risk rises to 0.21%. So they are using scare tactics to make you believe that 75% of tanners will develop skin cancer. From this example you can see THIS SIMPLY IS NOT TRUE.

  • The study groups included people who cannot tan (Skin Type 1, not allowed to tan in North American salons). When they were removed from the study sample, there was no increase in risk for the group studied. None. Only non-tanners showed an increase in risk.

  • Of the 23 studies referenced in the report (some dating back to the 1980's), 5 were excluded for unusable data, 6 had results that suggested tanning beds actually REDUCE the risk of cancer, and 16 had results within the margin of error

• People are more sun-smart now than at any time in the past, in good part because of the increased use of sunscreens. If sunburn incidence is down, melanoma incidence is up and sunscreen usage is up then maybe it's not the sun; MAYBE it's something in the sunscreens, which have not been subject to anywhere near the scrutiny suffered by tanning facilities

It is clearer now more than ever that humans NEED regular UV exposure as the true natural way to make vitamin D, which is being shown to have incredibly positive effects on people's health. It is called ‘The Sunshine Vitamin’ for a reason: You produce more vitamin D by getting a tan in a non-burning fashion than you would from drinking 100 glasses of whole milk.

The key to proper exposure is to never burn. This is why we preach Smart Tanning and do not recommend tanning any more frequently than every 48 hours.

We invite you to be come more informed on the issues of ultraviolet light and Vitamin D issues by visiting the following web sites. Note that these sites are not associated at all with the tanning industry; their purpose is to give a balanced perspective on the issues and help educate and guide you on the important issues here.

http://www.vitamindsociety.org/

http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/

http://www.uvfoundation.org/