Tanning-bad bad bad.

I think it's completely obnoxious and I will continue with my non existant tanning and lack of leathery skin and/or skin cancer.

amen sisters. I don't want cancer at 25!

What this article doesn't tell you is that the AAD is actually trying to make tanning beds illegal except for "medical uses". What the medical use is of something that causes cancer is quite far beyond me, but hey. I don't use tanning beds, but I don't support my right to do it being taken away.

I don't EVER tan. But I have currently started going in the beds only for the reason that I am going on vaca soon and I do not want to burn. I believe burning causes cancer not necessarily tanning. (okay, excessive tanning that is a different story LOL) I think a minimal amount of sun exposure is good but who really knows for sure?! I do think this article is crap and that tanning is generally bad for you. Hence why I don't normally do it.

1. The lucrative sunblock industry??

2. Tanning is gross. I like my skin alabaster. I'm not opposed to going out in real sunlight, but seriously, putting yourself in a little coffin-like device that bakes you like a potato? That's a ticket to a nice early coffin.

Hahaha--coffin-like device is right. That alone would be enough to freak me out and not ever want to tan. Then again I brown more easily than a buttered turkey in an oven on Thanksgiving (with sunblock at all times, though), so, yeah, no tanning beds for me.

I know this is a stupid strategy, but it's still pretty sad. Cancer is just never something to joke about.

Yes - I have ditched the tanning beds too!

"What this article doesn't tell you is that the AAD is actually trying to make tanning beds illegal except for "medical uses"

seriously if they are going to make tanning illegal because it causes cancer, then they should make smoking illegal too, since it also causes cancer.
I tan and I don't need to hear how it will kill me or give me cancer, I know this. However if your gonna make something illegal cause it causes cancer, go after something that affects others, like smoking.....

I had cancer at age 29 and I tanned a lot from around age 24-29.

Do you still get the Vitamin D benefits from tanning beds? It seems to me that would be the ONLY way it could possibly be beneficial.

Never been to a tanning bed and don't plan to. I'm happy with my pretty pale skin and know that later in life, my skin and my youthful looking face and skin will thank me for it.

I was recently in a tanning salon to try Mystic Tanning for the first time, and the guy working there got into this whole long conversation with me about how going in tanning bed actually reduces the risk of lots of other cancer, because of the Vitamin D intake.

I walked away and rolled my eyes. I have no problem with indoor tanning, and I do it from time to time. To each their own, but this campaign is ludicris.

I used to go to tanning beds all the time from about 17 until 3 years ago. I'm 26 and fair skinned with freckles. I knew it was ruining my skin but I didn't care then. Now I slather on sunscreen like it's going out of style when I am out for long periods and wear sunscreen on my face daily.

Mariner - yup I'm pretty sure you still get the D.

I dont understand how anyone could still be doing tanning, whether indoors or out.

I couldnt care less if I have a tan in the summer, as long as I dont look like a wrinkled old terd when I'm 30+.

I have 2 many friends who already look realllllly gross b/c of their perma-tans.

There was this girl in my high school who was literally obsessed over tanning. She convinced her parents to buy a tanning bed to put in their basement, and I sh*t you not she was so tan her skin was a permanently burnt orange color. Her really close friends told me that if she missed a day of tanning, she would have an anxiety attack and start crying hysterically. And upclose, she had such deep wrinkles around her eyes when she smiled, and she was 17!!!!!

THAT was the reason why I never like tanning beds in the first place. Tan in a bottle for me! And mystic. Wheeee

Mondaymoos, I only know of one medical use for tanning beds and that's for people with psoriasis I guess it helps with the condition somehow? I'm not sure exactly how but I knew a couple people with psoriasis and one's Dr. had a tanning bed like device in his office and the other was recommended by her Dr. to go tanning if she'd like to see a decrease in the condition, even though she was also warned about tanning's risks.

i never liked tanning

i don't want cancer

i only tanned a few times in my life- ok maybe like 15 but over like a year period. and honestly my skin used to smell like burning flesh afterwards- it was so gross that i just stopped doing it all together. now i protect my skin with sunblock. i will lie out in natural sun for a while- covered head to toe in spf 45 but even after about an hour of that you'll find me in the shade!

UV rays do funny things to your skin. I work in a dermatologist's office and firsthand see all these leathery old ladies getting skin cancers removed from their tanning bed habits.

Who cares if you're white as a sheet? It can be elegant. Your skin wont look leathery and wrinkled when you're 40 either.

For the ones who wonder what the "medical uses" could be for, when I was 10 I came down with a skin condition that looked like eczema, but it wasn't and I saw tons of doctors and none could figure out what it was and how to treat it, after treatment after treatment, one doctor finally suggested using it as therapy. My skin cleared up after a few sessions of that therapy. Still isn't clear what was going on with my skin to this day, but there ya have it, one medical use.

Tanning beds are SO dangerous.

I didn't know that, lemuse, emososays. Thanks for the info!

Still stand by my opinion that it's not some associations' business to take my right to cook myself into a cancered frenzie away from me. Again... I don't go... but I hate being told I'm not allowed to things that have no effect on anyone else's life.

I am amazed that some people still use tanning beds! But just look around....tanning bed salons are EVERYWHERE.

UV Rays are responsible for 90% of the aging process... 90% of your wrinkles are going to be caused by UV rays that you received either from the sun or a tanning booth.

In your 20's is when you should really start staying out of the sun, because thats when you start noticing sun damage.. at least so I read in an article. I believe it to be true. I put sunblock on even during the winter. So sunblock all year round me.

I tanned like about 5 times when I was 17. Now I just stay out of the sun..well, I go outside obviously but cake on sunscreen, and wear long sleeved shirts to stay covered lol. I don't like the sun a whole lot, because of the fact that when I was 12 I got a second degree burn from the sun. I got so sick, I had a 103 temperature. It was the most pain I have ever experienced.

I've been told that you really only need exposure to sun for 10-minutes to get the daily dose of D. That can certainly be just walking to/from your car and getting the mail.

Tanorexia was rampant in the late 90's when I was in HS. I had several friends that would bake their selves in crisco, lying on their black trampolines.

People know better now.

I hate tanning beds; I've never used one since I know risks. I would rather be my pale self and use SPF30 & higher; I try self-tanning products now & then, never have luck with the coloring so I've become comfortable with my pale self.

bailaoragaditana, LMAO @ "bakes you like a potato"

ckeller, there was a girl like that at my old university. My friend and I nicknamed her "Orange girl," and the funny thing was, whenever we brought her up in conversation with other people, they would instantly know who we were talking about. This is a campus of 35,000 full-time students!! That's how notorious Orange girl was.

Mondaymoos:
"I hate being told I'm not allowed to things that have no effect on anyone else's life."

If someone gets skin cancer and dies on their own seeking no treatment, then you're right, it doesn't affect anyone else, aside from the sadness of death to family and friends. But the second they walk into a doctor's office and seek treatment, their insurance company starts paying. If they need surgery or chemotherapy or treatment of any sort, then the insurance company starts shelling out a lot. And then to make up the risk, premiums on health insurance and copays increase across the board to everyone -- either directly to you in terms of what you pay per visit, or to your employer who provides the health insurance. This post isn't about the problems with health insurance, but that's just how it works. I, personally, think tanning AND smoking should be illegal. It sickens me how much money we wind up paying to treat people who are doing things that THEY know causes cancer.
I'm a chemist doing cancer research. I see first hand the billions of dollars the government gives to lung cancer research, and the next-to-nothing money that goes into pediatric oncology research (my field). Tell me, does someone who has been smoking a pack a day for 30 years really deserve to get over 100 times more funding for their cancer than a poor child who hasn't even had the opportunity to develop cancer-causing behaviors yet?
I know this issue is about skin cancer, but the point is that what someone else does on their own time does indeed affect the rest of us -- we as a society wind up paying for their healthcare, and that's not fair to those of us who refrain from such negative behaviors.

well stated, julieulie.

I agree. Good point that I didn't even think of.

I agree with mondaymoos. It's sad that tanning causes cancer, but people CHOOSE to do it, as they do with smoking. We all know it causes cancer and have done for a long time now. It's not new news and if you decide to take that risk knowing what might happen to you, and it happens, it's no one else's fault but your own, especially in this day and age where information is jammed down your throat about it, like in those god awful anti-smoking ads (I want to scream if I hear that "It must have been a typo" one. I almost want to go and smoke to spite them...but that might be the point seeing as they're sponsored by Phillip Morris or some other big tobacco group, but I digress...)

I get what Julieulie is saying, but it just made me feel like if you get cancer from tanning specifically, it shouldn't be covered by insurance. I know it's harsh, but once again, it's not like you're innocently tanning/smoking and don't know what the potential consequences are. You know that when you're doing it. It's your own fault. I know I'm going to get my head bitten off for this, and I'm sorry if I make people mad. I suppose it's more something that should go into effect with something like smoking where you know for sure that that is the cause.

The trouble with making something small like tanning and smoking illegal is that it desensitizes people to having their civil liberties taken away to "protect them" and I'd rather not live in a place where I can't make my own choices.

I tan from time to time, as I have seasonal depression and it really helps me. I don't over tan, I'm not orange.
I worked at a Physical Therapy office and we had a tanning bed specifically for treatment of fibromyalgia. Say what you will, but it did help alleviate pain in a large portion of our patients.

Uh, in high school I had friends who were obsessed with being tan and looking "healthy" and they never looked very natural. I'll never forget the day my friend came to school with tiny, tiny blisters all over her face because she had been in a tanning bed for too long. It didn't really show unless you looked really close but it was not very nice, she was in pain! Though I got that it was stupid and would never have done it before that, that incident really made me think of how much the skin is just "fried" and it grossed me out.

I tan very easily in summer, even if I never just lie outside to get tan, and use sunblock. It's just in my family. My complexion and natural hair colour etc mean I look so much better with a bit of a tan (A BIT of a tan, not Lohan territory! Orange = not hot) Now, I use body lotion with a hint of self-tan to get a nice glow. It works perfectly, isn't (what I know) at all harmful and looks really natural.

Tanning beds = So unnecessar. Why put yourself at risk?

I am stunned by all the misinformation, anecdote and propaganda that is posted here in the comments section. First of all, indoor tanning does not cause melanoma. Secondly, most of the population is vitamin D deficient and cancers associated with vitamin D deficiency kill 60,000 people a year. A tanning bed has never killed a single person.

The website www.sunlightscam.com busts the AADA and several groups including the Melanoma Foundation for publicizing misinformation and propaganda. This has caused a lot of folks to steam and fume. Nobody likes to get busted.

Doctors who tell melanoma patients that they got their skin cancer as a result of their own behavior (tanning) are irresponsible. It is just not their fault. It is wrong to blame the victim. The #1 precursor for melanoma is a family history of skin cancer; it is genetic. Melanoma patients were likely to get skin cancer, no matter what they did. There isn't a causal relationship between tanning and melanoma skin cancer. That's science, not misinformation or propaganda.

Nobody is advocating over-exposure (sunburning) or excessive exposure (so-called tanorexia). However, moderate exposure to UV light in a tanning bed is healthy behavior. It will cure a vitamin D deficiency. And most people who tan will tell you it makes them look and feel better. There is nothing wrong with that.

Many people are more inclined to believe a doctor, considered an authority figure by society. My suggestion is that adults should be proactive about their health and do their research. Adults are fully capable of making a decision whether or not to tan.

Doctors are not infallible and they have their own biases. Keep in mind, approximately 100,000 people die every year from doctor's medical mistakes. This statistic only includes the unfortunate deaths from documented medical mistakes in a hospital setting.

It doesn't include the 60,000 other deaths from vitamin D deficiency that could have been prevented by regular moderate exposure to UV light in a tanning bed.

Have a nice tan!

"There isn't a causal relationship between tanning and melanoma skin cancer. That's science, not misinformation or propaganda."

Actually, Jim, that's not science that's flat out false, lying, bullsh*t.
I'm a scientist. I can tell the difference.

Where did you get your MD/Ph.D.? How many years have you been a PI at the NCI? Or do you just happen to be an uneducated, money-hungry tanning salon owner? Just curious.

julieulie if your are a scientist can you please lgive us a link to this unflawed scientific study that shows tanning beds are directly linked to melanoma like you claim? That would give us something to go on besides an opinion only.

So funny when you read stuff like "tanning beds are SO dangerous" and from someone that claims to be a scientist to respond with such a elementary response.

Tanning is so dangerous to whom? Where is the evidence of this? In science class we learned that you start with a hypothesis and then ran tests to see if that hypothesis was valid or not. These days we start with a hypothesis and then build a study around it to PROVE it.

Not the same thing.

So I ask you, if tanning beds are so bad where are the numbers showing this? Have you ever even tested a tanning bed yourself with UV meters "scientist" or are you repeating wive's tales?

If you look at the numbers, skin cancer goes UP not DOWN since the pushing of SPF creams started. Again, this "scientist" would know from high school lab that if the evidence shows otherwise you don't "cover it up" you rework the lab and work with the new findings to actually come to a conclusion NOT "oh well we did see some slight evidence that it might cause free radicals so let's start putting people out of business based on that".

That's stupid and again AT WORST you are talking about a couple thousand people a year die from "skin cancer". How many of those are tanning bed related? 6? 100?

Are you saying that an entire industry should be put out of work for the sake of a handful of humans?

Are you all nuts? How many of you drive a car? Talk on the phone while driving? Well in 2005 there were 6,420,000 car accidents.

6 MILLION IN ONE YEAR.

And you want to destroy the economy even more than it already is for the sake of a handful that fall under the friendly heading that the medical industry uses to get away with killing X amount of people to save a whole lot more STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT.

Out of 300million people in the country there is X% that will drop dead from the most extreme and/or unusual circumstances and this number falls WILL within that small %.

People falling out of bed and dying, hit by an asteroid, drowning from drinking too much water, suffocating from breathing too hard.

These are the types of things you people are crowing about. Small numbers of unfortunates that no matter who you want to "pay" for their demise just won't help. Maybe it's time that everyone actually got up and went to work? Maybe you wouldn't be so worried nothing?

You would think you'd start with something obvious like SKY DIVING or something like an EATING CONTEST cause no one in the US is overweight. Another small number...like 50% of the population.

What? You aren't worried about a small number like 150MILLION?

Yeah, focus on tanning. That's where life's problems start and end.

(I still think it's funny that this person claims to be a "scientist"! Yeah, I'm J. Christ. Nice to meet you!)

DJM DE, I just posted a bunch of links from PubMed with related articles on melanoma and skin care risk, but because of all the links it was automatically flagged. Hopefully it will be pushed through soon. Unfortunately for a lot of these you need subscriptions but if you cannot access them, send me a message and I can email you the PDF file.

"I, personally, think tanning AND smoking should be illegal. It sickens me how much money we wind up paying to treat people who are doing things that THEY know causes cancer."

Sugar and other unhealthy foods cause diabetes and heart disease - should we outlaw those things because insurance companies have to foot the bill? How about jogging, since avid joggers often have to get their knee and hip replacement surgeries?

Denying people their civil liberties is not too bright a solution.

Here are a few articles for your reading pleasure:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18173518?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSys...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17131335?ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSy...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16943234?ordinalpos=20&itool=EntrezSy...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16618869?ordinalpos=23&itool=EntrezSy...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16354251?ordinalpos=29&itool=EntrezSy...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15767329?ordinalpos=37&itool=EntrezSy...

Enjoy!

My response to julieulie was also flagged, apparently for posting links to the medical study "The Sun and the Epidemic of Melanoma: Myth on Myth!" by A. Bernard Ackerman, MD & Renata Joffe, MD.

(Go look it up on Google. It's available for purchase on Ardor Scribendi.)

I also posted a link to Dr. Ackerman's resume, in case julieulie wants to prepare to debate him. (I'm afraid it would not be a very sporting contest. My money is on Dr. Ackerman to win by a knockout in the first round.)

I am an esthetician and although I don't have any facts supporting weather or not the sun causes melanoma, I do know that the sun is the number one reason for pre-mature aging. I treat numerous women who worshiped the sun in their youth and are paying for it BIG time now. Their skin is sagging, leathery, and extremely wrinkly. A nip and a tuck is really the only thing going to help them once it gets to that point. So I don't know about anyone else, but I will continue to avoid long exposure to UV rays and spf, if for no other reason, my vanity.

"The number one risk factor for melanoma is an inability to tan; people who tan easily or have dark pigmentation are far less likely to develop the disease," says the study's senior author, David E. Fisher, MD, PhD, director of the Melanoma Program at Dana-Farber and a professor in pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston. "This study suggests that p53, one of the best-known tumor-suppressor proteins in our body, has a powerful role in protecting us against sun damage in the skin."

This is the gist of the harvard study that jim was talking about. so if you "tan easily" i.e you are olive skinned and not fair, then you have a protein in your skin that protects you againist skin cancer. if your irish (such as myself) you dont have that protein and are not protected againist skin cancer.

Julieulie, you are kind of my hero!

I have some experience with cancer literature research. I am getting my masters, def nowhere near PhD amounts of reading though! BUT, you took the words right out of my mouth regarding whats-his-name with the RIDICULOUS info on tanning being good.

Ummmm, if you have a Vit D deficiency take a freakin' multivitamin! Or eat some fish! And besides you really do only need 10 mins of sun a day to make enough Vit D! One more point is that the more melanin your skin has, the longer it takes for the UV rays to penetrate your skin and make Vit D, so tanning really only makes it more difficult for this Vit D process.

For the rest of us pale people out there, Im good with my 10 mins of sun a day (which is enough b/c the sun can actually get through my skin) and my multi. There are sooooooo many other things you can do to prevent cancer or help your survival, I have NO IDEA why tanning is being touted as anti-cancer! Does smoking help aide brain cancer b/c it gives you peace of mind? No? Oh well, I though that the same line of thought could be applied here too. No? My mistake...

P.S. Tell him to watch a Rosenberg documentary (he tries to use viruses and ILs to make the body attack its cancer), and tell me how many people with metastatic melanoma were sunny peeps... yeah about 90%.

Even though some people who earn their income from tanning beds would like us to believe otherwise, there is a very strong correlation between sun/uv exposure and melanoma.

Furthermore, as many of you have pointed out, tanning makes your skin look old. So if you want to increase your chances of developing skin cancer, or you really love sun spots and premature aging, by all means, head to a tanning bed. If you value your health, make SPF your friend.