Study: Indoor tanning salons don't look out for kids' safety.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA— Indoor tanning, once considered one of the teenage years’ lesser evils (compared to, say, drinking and drugs), is now widely recognized for what it truly is—a potent carcinogen. In fact, an international review recently found that melanoma risk increases by as much as 75 percent if you start tanning indoors while still in your teens and 20s.

As a result, 28 states now have indoor tanning laws regulating tanning facility practices, and 21 have some sort of youth access restriction (such as parental consent requirements). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) goes one step further and recommends no more than three indoor tanning sessions your first week. However, given that melanoma incidence among U.S. women ages 15 to 39 is rising, the question is, are kids and indoor tanning facilities abiding by these regulations and recommendations? The answer, according to a large study published this month in the Archives of Dermatology, is yes and no.

THE DETAILS: A team of researchers from San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego, telephoned employees of 3,647 indoor-tanning salons in 116 U.S. cities, a sample representing all 50 states. The callers posed as fair-skinned 15-year-old girls who had never tanned indoors before but were interested in doing so. The callers asked the employees about their salons’ policies regarding parental consent, parental accompaniment, and how frequently clients are allowed to tan.

What they found was that 87 percent of the tanning salon operators called told the girls they needed parental consent to tan—in fact, fully 78 percent of the operators in states without parental consent laws required parental consent; 93 percent of operators in states with parental consent laws required it. However, only 11 percent of the operators limited the teens to the FDA-recommended three or fewer tanning sessions the first week—in fact, 71 percent of the facilities said the teens could tan every day if they wished and actually encouraged it by offering “unlimited tanning price packages.”