The Cancer Conspiracy

PRICE OF TAN MAY BE CANCER

By James Southgate

Young women desperate for that full-body tan, are on the fast track to skin cancer, according to a British researcher, who said there was "increasingly compelling evidence" that link, the use of tanning beds to the rise in skin cancer.
Antony Young, deputy head of the skin sciences division at King's College London, has reviewed the evidence that link the popular tanning devices to malignant melanoma, a skin cancer that is fatal if not detected and treated early.
Young's review, published in the journal Pigment Cell Research, found the evidence of the dangers was stronger in more recent research, almost certainly reflecting the longer and more widespread use of tanning beds.
"A relationship between solar exposure, particularly intermittent exposure, and malignant melanoma is well established. so it is not surprising that a similar connection has been reported for the use of tanning devices," Young said. While some have argued that a tan protects against the sun's rays, in reality it is associated with DNA damage.
Young said that unlike most cancers that tend to happen in late middle age, melanoma often appears in younger people and is the third most common cancer in women under 35. In Canada, incidences of skin cancer have. risen from 40,000 in 1989 to 70,000 in 2001, including 3,800 melanomas, making skin cancer the most frequent cancer in North America.
Indoor tanning is big business, with reports that the industry makes more than $2 billion a year in the United States.