With the warmth of spring soon heading our way, it looks like the “Anti-tans” are sharpening up their blades for their annual attacks on our industry.
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Case in point: using expired data with antiquated numbers of our industry from about a decade ago, this latest push uses those once high numbers of salons and tanners to now go after tan bans for those 21 years of age and younger. Twenty-one years and under? Are you kidding me? Young men and women can enlist in our military to defend our country, but tan indoors in moderation? Apparently not!
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Witness the latest drive from a New York legislator whose new state proposal would raise the minimum age for using tanning beds to 21. This suggests teens would have to go outdoors (risking sunburn and overexposure) to get a tan. Using the scare tactic that “ultraviolet radiation and related skin cancer are a bigger health issue than smoking cigarettes,” bill sponsor, Sen. James Skoufis, is asking his fellow NY lawmakers to support his drive to “keep the next generation of New Yorkers safe from these carcinogenic products.” Hmm, sounds suspiciously like campaign rhetoric.
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In his proposed bill, he pushes numbers from the American Skin Care Foundation stating that there are “… more than 419,000 cases of skin cancer in the U.S. each year are linked to indoor tanning, and more people develop skin cancer because of indoor tanning than develop lung cancer because of smoking,” said Skoufis. Wow! What a sensational soundbite! So, listen for more of those soundbites in the upcoming months. Such as, “Despite the known risks, more than 2.3 million U.S. adolescents use indoor tanning devices each year,” according to a New York State Department of Health memo from 2017. Really? Well, let’s run those numbers.
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There are about 42 million adolescents in America and about 53% or 22 million are Caucasian. Ergo, that means an overwhelming majority (90%) of white adolescents DO NOT tan indoors. This is a number we probably will not see publicized. Look for another finger-point position from “new study has estimated that treating the skin cancer caused by tanning beds is costing Americans $343 million a year,” according to a study in the Journal of Cancer Policy. They’ll use numbers that a University of North Carolina research team stated is the medical cost after determining that, in 2015, there were approximately 263,000 new cases of skin cancer that could be attributed to indoor tanning. What will NOT be uncovered is exactly how the researchers isolated these new cases of skin cancer from ANY incidental or purposeful exposures to direct natural sunlight and made them ONLY attributed to sunbeds. Hello? We’re waiting …
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As always, remember that millions of us weigh the risk and benefit of UV exposure and choose to tan indoors in a professional facility where sessions are delivered in moderation and responsibility by determining each individual’s skin type and using a timer that minimizes the risk of sunburn and overexposure.
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Team IST searches for erroneous, suspect or negative reporting by the media that adversely impacts the tanning industry. Reports such as these have plagued tanning businesses for decades. Although the media sources will seldom admit a falsehood and print a retraction, IST offers these well-crafted responses to the negative reports that can be shared with your customers and potential customers, alike.
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