Politics & Government

Tanning Beds Banned for Teens with New State Law

Gov. Brown signs local State Senator Ted Lieu's bill which prevents people under 18 years old from using tanning beds.

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill authored by state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, banning youths under age 18 from using indoor tanning booths.

“I praise Gov. Brown for his courage in taking this much-needed step to protect some of California’s most vulnerable residents – our kids – from what the ‘House of Medicine’ has conclusively shown is lethally dangerous: ultraviolet-emitting radiation from tanning beds,” Lieu said in a statement. 

“If everyone knew the true dangers of tanning beds, they’d be shocked. Skin cancer is a rising epidemic and the leading cause of cancer death for women between 25 and 29."

Lieu, whose 28th District includes Venice, pushed the bill through the Legislature after press conferences in Sacramento in April to review the health threat posed to teens and in Los Angeles in September at Children's Hospital with a melanoma survivor who used tanning beds.

The bill, SB 746, was signed Sunday by Brown. It was sponsored by the California Society of Dermatology & Dermatological Surgery and the Aim at Melanoma Foundation. It also was supported by the California Medical Association, Anthem Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Existing law prohibits anyone under 14 from using ultraviolet tanning devices, but allows tanning bed access for those between 14 and 18 with permission of a parent or legal guardian.

The new law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2012.

Pop music star Kay Perry in her hit song "California Gurls" sings of unforgettable girls with "sun-kissed skin," but a recent study from the Cancer Prevention Institute of America warned that melanoma rates have more than doubled among California females ages 15 to 39 in high socio-economic areas.

“Girls in affluent California communities especially are surrounded by the message that being tanned all year round is cool,” said study co-author Christina Clarke, of the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, in a September statement supporting Lieu's bill.
 
“Pop music star Katy Perry is even singing about it,” Clarke added. “But there is nothing cool about sun exposure that increases your risk for deadly cancer.”

Thirty states have some restrictions on teens and tanning beds, including Texas, which has a tanning bed ban for anyone under 16 1/2 years old. New York, Illinois, Ohio and Rhode Island are considering bans similar to California. Several European countries, including France and England, have banned tanning beds for anyone under 18.

Supporters of the ban on tanning beds for those under 18 cited statistics showing that those who use tanning beds before age 38 increase their lifetime risk of melanoma by 75 percent.

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