Salons fail to issue sunbed warnings

0 Comments | Daily Mail (London, England), The, August 26, 2009

Byline: Eva Marie Gibney

TANNING salons are failing to give customers proper safety information despite an alarming rise of skin cancer, a survey has found. An undercover investigation of tanning salons in Dublin has revealed they are more interested in getting customers' money than in heeding safety concerns.

The survey, by the Irish Cancer Society, found that staff in tanning shops displayed 'no knowledge of the dangers of sunbeds' and even advocated the 'regular use' of tanning beds to customers. Yesterday's survey came just a day after Minister for Health Mary Harney said she would like to see an all-out ban on sunbeds in Ireland to deal with the increasing rate of skin cancer here.

Miss Harney said: 'I would love to ban sunbeds for everybody and that's something I have asked my Department to explore.' She described a ban on sunbeds as a 'no-brainer'.

The Minister said it was known that sunbeds are dangerous. But she fears that existing EU legislation may prevent an all-out ban being implemented unilaterally in Ireland.

However her comments raised questions over whether the EU would be able to reverse an outright ban, as for example, European legislation has supported the smoking ban.

The Irish Cancer Society's survey could put more pressure on the Minister to put an outright ban in place.

To conduct the survey, an undercover representative visited eight sunbed providers in two beauty salons, two gyms, two tanning shops and two DVD shops in the Dublin region.

At each of the sunbed providers, the representative stated that she was preparing for a wedding, had concerns about being so fairskinned but wanted to use a sunbed.

She also asked how often she should use the sunbed and was there a limit as to how many sessions she should have Researchers found that staff in all of the premises' visited failed to pass on safety advice - with each sunbed provider also recommending a different number of sessions and different length of time per session.

The survey also discovered that staff appeared to have very little training and displayed no knowledge of the dangers associated with sunbeds.

Shop assistants presented sunbed usage as a totally natural and safe thing to do - and were reluctant to suggest not using the sunbed.

Usage of the sunbeds was unregulated and unsupervised in all of the eight providers - once the customer joins the facility or sets up an account they were then free to use sunbeds as often and for whatever length of time they chose. There were no posted guidelines about how often and how long sunbed sessions should be. Customers were also told that sunbed usage is the responsibility of the individual.

According to the Irish Cancer Society survey only one sunbed provider had a small sign on the wall about the possible dangers of over-exposure to UVA/UVB rays emitted from sunbeds - the radiation which causes skin cancer. Commenting on the research yesterday, Norma Cronin, health promotion manager with the Irish Cancer Society, said the focus of sunbed providers appeared to be on 'convenience' and 'getting customers into the sunbed as quickly as possible' rather than engaging in any consultation with the customer about the dangers associated with the use of sunbeds. Welcoming the Minister's comments about a possible all-out ban, she said: 'We understand that the Department of Health and Children is preparing legislation to ban sunbed usage [by those] under 18 years old, which has been promised since June 2006.

'The legislation will also include additional requirements such as mandatory warnings and the use of consent forms.

She added: 'Once this legislation is in place, we should be looking at a complete ban on sunbed usage. Sunbeds cause skin cancer. There is no such thing as safe sunbed usage.' eva.gibney@dailymail.ie

CAPTION(S):

Life and death gamble: Sunbed usage has been definitively linked to skin cancer, but suppliers fail to pass on warnings to customers