While enjoying a nice fall evening with the family, I took some after-dinner time to surf the web. Immediately popping out to grab my attention was: “Woman left with hole in her face after using tanning beds.” Apparently, an Indiana woman had a surgical procedure to remove melanoma. Well, let’s take a look at some nuggets from this story:
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1. Statistics show cases of melanoma – a deadly type of skin cancer – have soared in the past decade, particularly in younger people.
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U.S. statistics (SEER report) maintains that melanoma rates have slightly increased, but older, white males still make up the majority of melanoma incidence. Approximately 2.3% of men and women will be diagnosed with melanoma of the skin at some point during their lifetime, based on 2014-2016 data. Which means that 97.7% will NOT be diagnosed with melanoma in their lifetime. Doubtful that we’ll see THAT headline anytime soon. (See more at: seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/melan.html)
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2. An astounding 1/3 of Americans use tanning beds, despite dermatologists’ widespread warnings against doing so.
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One third of Americans use tanning beds? That would mean over 100,000,000 users, which is widely overstated. New salon openings, new bed sales, and increased lamp and lotion sales would be soaring. However, our industry has been maintaining and now significantly moving into a fifth decade.
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3. Study corresponding author, Dr. Simon Lergenmuller, an epidemiologist at the University of Oslo in Norway, said: “These results support development of policies that regulate indoor tanning.”
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I saw comments about the lack of regulation in our industry over 20 years ago and we still see these types of comments published today. Our industry, has in fact, been regulated by the Food and Drug Administration since the inception of modern indoor tanning. The FDA’s 21 CFR 1040.20 was issued in 1986.
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4. Sunbeds emit ultraviolet (UV) rays and overexposure to UV rays is the main preventable cause of skin cancer.
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Well, this article references melanoma. The leading factors of melanoma incidence are family history of skin cancer, fair hair and eyes, freckles and mole prevalence, as well as life history of UV exposure and sunburn. Simply avoiding UV exposure doesn’t secure that one will never get melanoma. So, let’s go back to the young woman with the hole in her face. From the photo, she looks to have reddish or light-colored hair and light eyes. It is possible that she has freckles. The article did not reference her family history of skin cancer, her lifetime history of sunburn or anything about tanning in her entire life in natural sunlight. Articles like these never do – they are typically sensationalist and meant to attract the public’s attention. Note that this story about the Indiana woman surfaced on a UK website called the Daily Mail.
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In this Watchdog column, we are pleased to offer countering, factual information to our loyal IST readers and encourage you to share it with your salon guests.
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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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