The pretty lights of tanning beds and the warm glow of a suntan, especially during a long, gloomy winter, can be almost irresistible — especially for teenage girls.
It's a lure that has proved deadly for many. The incidence of melanoma — the deadliest form of skin cancer — has surged nationwide, especially in young women, in the past few years, health professionals warn. Already this year, the National Cancer Institute has reported 9,700 deaths from melanoma and 76,000 new cases in the United States.
With that in mind, several Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill that would prohibit anyone under 18 from using indoor tanning beds.
Minnesota already requires parental consent for children younger than 16 to use tanning beds, but the proposed legislation would make the state's tanning regulations among the nation's strictest.
Sen. Chris Eaton, DFL-Brooklyn Center, the bill's author, said Minnesota has one of the nation's highest rates of melanoma because of tanning beds. Tanning bed users are 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who've never tanned indoors, the Skin Cancer Foundation says. A third of 11th grade girls in Minnesota used an indoor tanning salon at least once in the past year, according to a recent state survey.
Data like that moved Eaton, a registered nurse, to author the bill, which would require signs in tanning salons and apartments that house tanning beds warning of the danger and of the ban for those under 18.
Even the indoor tanning industry has come to support the legislation, which wasn't the case last year, Eaton said. The tide of research proving that tanning causes cancer is helping it understand that limits are necessary, she said.
Those who run tanning salons in the metro area have varying takes on the legislation.