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The Food & Drug Administration is scrapping a proposed rule that would ban American teenagers under 18 from using tanning beds. The rule, which was first proposed in 2015, aimed to restrict indoor tanning for minors for one very obvious reason: The UV light that these beds emit in high doses has been long-proven to cause skin cancer.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the FDA told Allure<\/em> in a statement that the agency withdrew the proposal \u201cin order to reconsider the best means for addressing the issues covered by the Proposed Rule and related issues regarding access to sunlamp products.\u201d Its decision came after the agency received more than 8,100 comments on the proposal\u2014comments that they say ranged from \u201cthe dangers of UV radiation from sunlamp products\u201d and the \u201cvulnerability of young people to the risks of sunlamp products\u201d to \u201csupport for personal choice and parental decision-making; availability\u201d and \u201ccompliance burdens on small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n The notice of the withdrawal was signed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr., who is known to frequent indoor tanning salons himself. (When asked by The Atlantic<\/em> a few months ago how he squares his tanning and nicotine habits with his day job, Kennedy replied, \u201cI\u2019m not telling people that they should do anything that I do. I just say \u2018Get in shape.\u2019\u201d)<\/p>\n In its statement, the FDA acknowledges the scientific link between tanning beds and skin cancer. \u201cWithdrawal of the proposed restrictions does not mean that exposure to UV radiation does not cause skin cancer. It is well established that exposure to UV radiation (including through sunlamp products) can lead to skin cancer,\u201d the statement reads. Despite this, they encourage \u201cusers of sunlamp products to discuss the potential risks with their physician before using sunlamp products\u201d\u2014a statement that ignores the fact that the risks are not potential<\/em>. They\u2019re confirmed by science.<\/p>\n Tanning beds\u2014like tobacco, formaldehyde, and asbestos\u2014are classified as a group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). And that’s a message that many, many board-certified dermatologists have hammered home for Allure<\/em> and our readers over the last three decades: Using tanning beds dramatically ups the likelihood of a skin cancer diagnosis. Full stop. These same dermatologists and health professionals now worry that the FDA’s withdrawal of this proposed tanning bed restriction sends a confusing message to minors and their parents. Susan C. Taylor, MD, FAAD, and president of the American Academy of Dermatology, released a statement this week saying that the organization was \u201cdisappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExposure to UV radiation from indoor tanning devices is associated with an increased risk of melanoma, as well as non-melanoma skin cancers, including squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma,\u201d says Dr. Taylor. Part of what makes tanning beds so dangerous is that \u201cthey emit mostly UVA radiation and filter out the UVB that will burn you more readily\u2014[tanning salons] don’t want you to burn, they want you to come back,\u201d says Dendy Engleman, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City. \u201cBut UVA radiation ages you more readily, breaks down collagen more readily, and it’s more oncogenic, meaning cancer-causing.\u201d<\/p>\n And late last year, new research from Northwestern Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco, revealed that tanning bed usage is in fact even more dangerous than we knew. Before then, it was thought that indoor tanners were about 75% percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who have never tanned indoors, and that just one session in a tanning bed could increase the risk by 20 percent. But this latest research found that tanning bed usage actually triples the risk of skin cancer\u2014that’s a 200 percent increase. Not only that, through comparing 182 skin biopsies, the researchers showed the UV emitted from tanning beds caused unique DNA mutations, more damaging than previously known. \u201cThe takeaway is simple: Tanning beds don\u2019t just age your skin, they biologically shift your cells toward cancer,\u201d Mona Gohara, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine Department of Dermatology, told Allure<\/em> at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n