Indoor Tanning Beds Back Under FDA Microscope

Posted on January 19, 2010 in Consumer Goods, Health & Medicine, Women's Health

If you want to look like the deeply bronzed stars of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” all year round, be warned that the cost of looking leathery does not come without risks.

The Food and Drug Administration said it is now considering adopting tougher rules and new warnings for tanning beds that use sunlamps which are linked to increased cancer risks.

Last summer, the World Health Organization’s cancer division put tanning beds on its list of cancer-causers. While tanning bed use has long been suspected of probably causing cancer, recent medical studies have now found that the risk of melanoma jumps by 75 percent in people who used tanning beds in their teens and 20s, according to an Associated Press report. Those findings were the final nail in the coffin for tanning beds as far as the FDA is concerned.

While tanning beds already carry some warnings about a link to cancer, the FDA recently decided those labels must be more visible and better convey the risks to users, especially to young people. In March 2009, an advisory FDA panel of scientific experts was asked to consider recommending stricter tanning bed regulations, including stricter warnings.

Part of the FDA’s concern is how often people use tanning beds, which can determine the cancer risk. In additional to melanoma skin cancer, UV exposure from the “fake bake” also is linked to basal and squamous cell carcinomas, which affect more than 1 million Americans a year, the AP reports.