To Tan or Not?

We’ve all known for years that overexposure to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight can cause skin cancer. But now there is hard evidence of the damage that tanning beds can do, especially when people are exposed young.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School, who have followed more than 70,000 nurses for two decades, found that tanning-bed use increased the risk of developing all three major forms of skin cancer, especially for the young women who started during high school and college. Yale School of Public Health researchers found that indoor tanning increased the risk of developing basal cell carcinomas, the most common skin cancer, before the age of 40.

Far too many young people aren’t getting the message. An analysis published this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found some 30 percent of non-Hispanic white women ages 18 to 25 had engaged in indoor tanning in the previous 12 months; those ages 18 to 21 had averaged an astonishing 27 sessions per year. Other research has shown that indoor tanning — in which ultraviolet radiation may far exceed that from midday summer sunlight — may become addictive because it activates brain regions associated with a reward response.

California and Vermont have banned all minors from tanning beds. New York has banned use by the youngest children but allows older teenagers to tan indoors with parental permission. The Assembly has passed a bill banning the use of indoor tanning facilities by all children under 18. The measure has the support of the state medical society and the American Cancer Society. The Senate should approve the bill, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo should sign it into law.

Adults must make their own choices about whether to go to tanning salons, but children don’t have the same critical faculties. It should be clear that people who start tanning when they are young, and continue, are at much higher risk.