Ban sought on indoor tanning for youths

ALBANY -- Anti-cancer activists urged state legislators Thursday to ban children younger than 18 from using indoor tanning beds, citing rising rates of skin cancer.

"We don't prohibit tobacco but we don't allow them to sell it to kids under 18 even if they have a note from their mother, unlike tanning booths," Russ Sciandra, state advocacy director for the American Cancer Society of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference.

Currently, state law allows children ages 14 through 17 to use tanning beds with parental permission, but those who are 13 and younger are prohibited. A bill to ban anyone under 18 from using ultraviolet light tanning beds has passed the State Assembly and has been passed out of committee in the Senate.

"We're trying to protect a very vulnerable population," said Assemb. Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach), who sponsored the bill.

Cases of melanoma in the state increased from 1,926 in 1998 to 3,479 in 2008, according to the state Health Department. The annual melanoma incidence rate per 100,000 people also increased during that time from 13.1 to 21.6 for men and from 8.2 to 13.3 for women. The Cancer Society cited a 2008 study in the Archives of Dermatology based on surveys of teenagers in Chicago. The number of teens reporting indoor tanning bed use increased from 1 percent in 1988 to 27 percent in 2007.

The World Health Organization's cancer research agency said in 2006 that, while studies did not provide "consistent evidence" that indoor tanning beds caused skin cancer, data showed "a prominent and consistent increase in risk for melanoma in people who first used sunbeds in their twenties or teen years."

State Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) said Thursday that "the dramatic and rapid increase in melanoma has proven that it's important that New York State enacts this legislation into law."

The Indoor Tanning Association, a national trade group based in Washington, D.C., opposes the bill.

"This is a decision that parents need to make about raising their kids, not the government," said John Overstreet, association executive director.

Dr. Charles Weissman, chief medical officer at New York Oncology Hematology, a cancer treatment provider network in the capitol region, said the number of melanoma cases he's treated has risen over the past 15 years, and that he's also seeing an increasing number of young people with the cancer.

"The use of tanning salons is a severe and significant risk for the development of potentially lethal melanoma in these young people," he said.