The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it will finally be taking a closer look at the health effects of indoor tanning, starting with an advisory committee meeting on March 25.
Considering that the agency has taken a decade (and counting) to release regulations guiding the manufacture, composition and advertising of sunscreens, the FDA is acting relatively quickly on indoor tanning.
Dermatologists, cancer advocates, and pediatricians, among others, have been seeking some kind of stricter regulations on indoor tanning, or, more hopefully, an outright ban. Many states and localities have begun to restrict the use of indoor tanning by minors. But, despite a wealth of evidence that excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation, even when delivered indoors, leads to skin cancer, the federal government has not moved to more strictly police tanning salons.
Congress has been prodding the FDA for years. In 2007, the Tanning Accountability and Notification Act was included in the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007. The TAN Act (see page 36 here) directed the FDA to study tanning bed warning labels that had been in place since 1985, with an eye towards making them more prominent and comprehensible by consumers. The FDA was then to report back to Congress.
In December 2008, the agency told lawmakers in its required report that it was considering updating the warning labels. A series of focus groups led it to believe that maybe the almost-quarter-century-old labels might have reached their expiration date.
A year later, the FDA created a web page warning consumers about the dangers of tanning indoors.
And now, the advisory panel. According to the announcement, "There continues to be a growing body of literature showing association of skin cancer with use of tanning lamps and the committee will discuss this information and other information related to the association of UV and skin cancer (both melanoma and non-melanoma). The committee will be asked to recommend whether changes to current classification or current regulatory controls of UV emitting devices (lamps) used for tanning are needed."
Expect a lively discussion at the meeting, with likely appearances by tanning salon owners and the Indoor Tanning Association. Those groups are already unhappy about a 10% tax on tanning users that's being proposed as part of health reform.
The agency usually takes its' advisory committees' advice to heart. We'll be keeping an eye on this panel's proceedings.
Alicia Ault (on Twitter @aliciaault)
Image courtesy Flickr user cogdogblog (cc)
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