Dangers of Parlors

More than 1 million Americans a day bask in one of the 20,000 tanning salons in the United States--greatly increasing their risk of skin cancer, an expert panel has concluded.

“We are clearly recommending against the use of tanning parlors for cosmetic purposes,” said David Bickers, a dermatologist who chaired a National Institutes of Health panel on sunlight, ultraviolet radiation and the skin.

Tanning parlors have often been advertised as being safer than exposure to natural sunlight. That is because most tanning parlors rely on lights that produce ultraviolet A rays--a longer wavelength thought to cause less damage than shorter-wavelength ultraviolet B rays.

But the 14-member panel of experts noted in its report that some UVA lamps “generate more than five times” the amount of UVA radiation reaching the Earth’s equator. “At these doses, even pure UVA is likely to have adverse biologic effects,” the panel concluded.

Only two states, California and Ohio, have any kind of consumer regulation of tanning salons. In both these states, consumers must read a statement about the risks of exposure and sign a release before entering the tanning booth. The panel called for other states to follow suit and issue similar regulations.

The biggest users of tanning parlors are adolescents and young adults, especially women, the panel noted. “We want to make sure that consumers know what they are doing,” Bickers said.