Kate White
Editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan
Posted: January 28, 2010 04:18 PM
Why Tanning Beds Are the Cigarettes of Our Age
When we first launched Cosmopolitan's Practice Safe Sun (PSS) campaign in
2006, it was in response to some shocking statistics I'd just learned:
Melanoma had become the second most frequently reported cancer in women in
their 20s. It was only later, though, that I began to hear the stories
behind the stats, and they've been heartbreaking: Women in their 20s and 30s
having multiple and disfiguring surgeries to remove the cancer and many
dying of the disease. I learned this week about a young mother who died of
melanoma five months after her twins were born. So often the common
denominator among these women is that they loved to be tan--from the sun and
often from tanning beds as well.
These stories have kept us highly motivated at Cosmo to make women aware of
the dangers of both outdoor and indoor tanning. This week we took Cosmo's
PSS initiative to a new level. We hosted a press conference in our offices
at which Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Congressman Charlie Dent
(R-PA) announced their plans to introduce The Tanning Bed Cancer Control
Act, a key piece of bipartisan legislation that would expand federal
regulation of tanning beds with the aim of limiting the strength of the UV
rays emitted by tanning beds and the time consumers may be exposed to
harmful radiation.
If you have any doubts about how dangerous beds are, consider the
announcement made in July by the World Health Organization. They described
tanning beds as definitely carcinogenic--putting them in the same category
as cigarettes, asbestos, and uranium. If you tan indoors before age 30, your
skin cancer risk rises by 75 percent (and nearly 70 percent of customers are
young women). When we did an undercover report with ABC's 20/20, we found
tanning salons routinely misrepresented the risks.
But at the same time that the evidence against tanning has become more
clear, we've seen the continuing glorification of the tan in popular
culture. Just check out the pervasive reality series, Jersey Shore. The
daily routine is "GTL"--gym, tanning, laundry.
As Representative Maloney said when she introduced this new bill, tanning
beds are the cigarettes of our age. We owe it to everyone, particularly to
young women, to make sure that the risks of tanning are clearly communicated
and understood and that tanning beds are regulated as tightly as devices
with their risk-profile merit. Please write your congressperson and let him
or her know you support this legislation.
And if you use a tanning bed, please stop. Now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-white/why-tanning-beds-are-the_b_440880.h
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