Indoor tanning, available at many salons around the country, has been linked to skin cancer in a number of research studies. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a ban on indoor tanning for anyone under the age of 18. Some states, such as California, have started instituting laws prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from using indoor tanning facilities.

The Suntanning Association

But indoor tanning is big business. According to NBC News, it has continued to grow over the last three years and it is expected that as people will spend as much as $5 billion by 2017. [1] With that much business on the line, the industry is fighting back against what it calls “The Sun Scare.” A new organization, The American Suntanning Association (ASA), is made up of 1,400 tanning salons, plans on launching a new public relations campaign to debunk claims from medical experts about the dangers of indoor tanning.

The ASA released a statement saying, “Indoor tanning has been accused of causing melanoma and other forms of skin cancer by the World Health Organization and others based on quasi-scientific reports that the ASA believes are flawed and biased.” [2] Their new PR campaign is meant to “challenge the incorrect and misleading statements being made against us.” [2] Specifically, their goals are to:

• Convince the FDA that current regulations are sufficient to protect the public
• Persuade the CDC to no longer be “anti-tanning”
• Persuade the NIH to further research Vitamin D and the role it plays in health
• Prevent any further states from initiating bans on tanning in those under the age of 18
• To loosen regulations on advertising of the tanning industry to allow them to advertise the health benefits of tanning
• Convince the government that there is a serious Vitamin D deficiency problem in the United States and that indoor tanning can help individuals get the proper amount of Vitamin D

Global Strategy Group, a high-profile public relations firm has been hired to help carry out the campaign. Other clients of the PR company include Goldman Sachs, General Electric and the New York Yankees.

The Dermatologists’ Stance

The American Academy of Dermatology released a statement with their views on the ASA’s press release and public relations campaign, saying, “The recent statements by the American Suntanning Association are ridiculous and there is no data to support them. Indoor tanning is dangerous. There is compelling scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed medical journals demonstrating that exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from indoor tanning devices is associated with an increased risk of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer, such as squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma.” [3]

Jerod Stapleton, an assistance professor of medicine at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, in an article on NBCNews, said he doesn’t see the merit in many of the studies the ASA uses to promote tanning. Stapleton states that these studies are not peer reviewed, have methodological flaws and cherry pick which data to use. They are also funded by the indoor suntanning industry rather than by neutral research labs.