Tanning Beds Continue to be Used by 30% of High-School Going White Girls

Three in 10 white girls in high school continue to use tanning beds even though there is clear evidence that they increase the risk of skin cancer. The study was conducted by researchers at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who found that over 29.3 percent of non-Hispanic white high school girls used tanning beds more than one time in a year. The study has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Recent studies have found that using tanning beds before the age of 25 years increases the risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, by more than 40 percent to 102 percent while using it before 35 years of age increased the risk by 59 percent to 75 percent.

The new report however has drawn criticism from The American Suntanning Association which said that there is a lot of conflicting data that support the policy of teaching women to avoid sun burns. “CDC’s short letter in JAMA calls for policy action, but in doing so ignores mountains of conflicting and confounding data which support teaching sunburn prevention to people of all ages, instead of targeting sun abstinence campaigns at young women. It could not be any more clear that skin cancer rates are skyrocketing in men, and particularly men over age 50, but CDC has inexplicably ignored this group”, the statement said.

Source-Medindia