Sunbed Regulations Useless Says Scottish Parliament Health Committee

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Article Date: 16 May 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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A health committee of the Scottish parliament said the regulations covering sunbeds and tanning machines offered for public use in commercial parlours are "useless" and do not protect the public, after reviewing evidence from the industry, environmental health and medical research.

The committee is reviewing the control of tannning machines as part of a health bill going through parliament. They were told the sunbeds are not safe because operators can modify them to exceed safety levels and that would not be considered against the law.

Richard Simpson, Labour member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) said four out of five sunbeds parlours did not meet the current safety guidelines, according to research, because the ultra violet levels in their tanning machines were above the British standard.

Alastair Shaw, from the Society of Chief Officers of Environmental Health in Scotland, told the committee that action could only be taken if someone was actually harmed, for example if they suffered burns and could prove it was from using a public tanning machine. He called the situation "problematic", and that operators were free to change the sunbed tubes to exceed the British standard levels, it was not against the law for them to do that.

Liberal Democrat MSP and former environment minister, Ross Finnie, who pressed Shaw to clarify that it would not be against the law to make tanning tubes more powerful than the British standard said the regulation "isn't worth a row of beans", adding that "there's no protection for the public in this matter and that's very serious," according to a BBC News report.

Labour MSPs have tabled a series of amendments to the health bill. They want to see a ban on parlours offering coin-operated sunbeds on unstaffed premises, and they also want to introduce a national licensing system and to ban children under 18 from using public tanning machines.

Helen Eadie, Labour MSP, said international studies had shown a link between sunbed use and skin cancer. And the British Medical Association said people who used sunbeds had a 2.5 times higher risk of developing skin cancer and that suntan parlours should be regulated through a licensing system.

Representatives from the tanning industry told the committee there was no evidence of people abusing sunbeds and the industry was not to blame for the increase in skin cancer rates. The committee heard evidence from Kathy Banks, the chief executive of the Sunbed Association, and Lene Priess, Director of the Consol Suncenter, which operates 20 coin-operated, unstaffed tanning centres.

Lene Priess, told the committee children were more at risk of getting skin cancer from over exposure to the sun while on a foreign holiday.

"The real risk to young people is holidaying abroad and over-exposing their skin over a short period of time," she said.

"Saying that sunbeds are killing people is an overstatement," added Priess, who also said as "long standing operators" they had no evidence of under-16s abusing sunbeds.

Priess said premises were monitored with CCTV and they could see children were not using them, and that their own market research of young people also confirmed this.

According to the Scotsman, Priess told the committee that the main risk factors for developing malignant melanoma were family history and skin type, as is repeated burning and over-exposure, "But to go out in the sun and behave responsibly, you do not have a risk factor," she said.

There are three most common types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and malignant melanoma. BCCs and SCCs are unlikely to spread and are usually removed because they look unsightly. Malignant melanoma is responsible for most deaths from skin cancer.

Click here for more information on melanoma skin cancer (Cancer Research UK).

Click here for more information on other forms of skin cancer (non-melanoma, Cancer Research UK).

Sources: BBC News, Scotsman.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today