September 27, 2009|By Larry Carson | Larry Carson,larry.carson@baltsun.com
When Michelle McCoy attended River Hill High School, she went to a tanning salon every other week in winter. Then she noticed moles on her hip and arm. Now 21 and a student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, McCoy covers up in the sun, uses sunblock and worries about skin cancer.
"I have a cousin who got skin cancer," McCoy said. She attended the news conference held by County Executive Ken Ulman and health officer Dr. Peter L. Beilenson on Tuesday to support their effort to make Howard the first county in Maryland to bar indoor tanning for anyone younger than 18.
"Minors don't know what's good for them," she said, noting that she had once stayed in a tanning bed for 18 minutes and been burned.
She said she decided to attend the news conference at the Health Department after getting an e-mail from her former salon urging her to oppose the regulation.
From 1980 to 2004, skin cancer among females ages 15 to 30 increased by 50 percent, according to Dr. Larry Green, a dermatologist who spoke at the Columbia news conference. Females ages 16 to 29 make up about 70 percent of the tanning salon business.
Young people are using tanning beds more and more, and Maryland's year-old parental consent requirement for those younger than 18 is rarely enforced and is having no effect, Ulman said.
Suffolk County in New York is considering a similar ban. Twenty-nine states regulate use of the beds by minors, Howard County officials said.
Ulman, whose brother Doug has had skin cancer twice, said he has "strong personal feelings" on the subject.
"When I was presented with the evidence [by Beilenson], how could I do anything but support our health officer?" Ulman said. He and Beilenson compared the proposed ban to similar regulations that bar alcohol and tobacco use by minors.
"I think it's absolutely essential that we help guide these vulnerable adolescents," Beilenson said.
Unlike Howard's move to bar smoking in restaurants and bars, the proposed tanning ban is to be considered by the county's appointed board of health, not the elected County Council. Beilenson said that is how he has enacted all the local health regulations since he got the job more than three years ago.
He said he must consider health before business profits.
The proposed regulation, tentatively scheduled for a public hearing Nov. 10, also would require registration of all tanning beds, training for operators, warning signs and signed customer statements, and there would be civil penalties for noncompliance.
There are 17 tanning salons in Howard County, Beilenson said, with probably dozens more tanning beds in gyms and health spas.
Beilenson noted a World Health Organization report in July citing seven studies on indoor tanning that indicated that the risk of skin cancer is increased 75 percent for those under 35. The studies identified the beds - like tobacco - as a cancer risk.
Howard's skin cancer rate is 21 cases per 100,000 people, Beilenson said, compared with the U.S. rate of 18 per 100,000.
But John Overstreet, executive director of the Washington-based Indoor Tanning Association, said the World Health Organization report was skewed and has been misinterpreted. Some of the studies cited involved fair-skinned Northern Europeans, he said.
"It's much ado about nothing. A lot of fluff and no substance," Overstreet said, contending that there is no hard evidence that indoor tanning causes cancer. He said the industry gets only 6 percent to 8 percent of its business from teens under 18.
Mark Bruce, 49, a Sykesville resident who said he owns five tanning salons situated around the Beltway, said teens make up just 2.5 percent of his customers and 1.5 percent of his receipts. But he, like Elkridge salon owner Melissa Moore, 28, who also attended the news conference, objects to the proposed ban.
"Parents are responsible for raising their children, not the government," Bruce said.
Moore, who runs the Bodyworks Tannery in the 6300 block of Washington Blvd., said more regulations are unnecessary, because parents must come in with their teens to sign a consent form under current state law.
"Most people get sunburned outdoors because it's not a controlled environment," she said, and family history, type of skin and other individual factors are more important than a ban on indoor tanning.
