Kids Need Parental Consent For Tanning Bed Use Due To Cancer Risk

People do all kinds of things for the ‘bronzed’ look; whether it is basking in the sun for hours to resorting to the tanning beds for a fake tan, but both are dangerous. The tanning bed works on the same principle as sunlight and it is the same exposure to certain harmful light rays that causes the skin to produce more melanin to darken.

The WHO had announced last year that tanning beds raise cancer risk; they were declared carcinogenic to humans. Though the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer presented a report saying the risk from tanning beds and lamps is only small or moderate that risk increases when exposure to tanning beds begins in childhood.

tanning bed

Also there is no benefit of any kind (apart from a perceived cosmetic one) to be obtained from tanning beds.

This is the reason that the FDA is considering having children produce a consent form signed by parents before they are allowed to use a tanning bed. By way of the consent form, parents will be made aware of the dangers of tanning bed, and its possible carcinogenic properties.

Source: Web MD