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.
