Tanning salons face new rules in N.B.

The New Brunswick government is bringing in a new set of rules and an education campaign aimed at keeping young people under the age of 18 from using tanning beds as a part of new regulations for the tanning industry.

Dr. Paul Van Buynder, the province's deputy chief medical officer of health, outlined the new regulations on Wednesday that continue the policy of not allowing people under 18 to use  tanning beds.

As well, operators are prohibited from advertising the health benefits of artificial tanning, such as building up a base tan to prevent sunburn and clients can only tan once every 48 hours.

Van Buynder had a very strong warning for people who want to use tanning salons.

"There is no such thing as a healthy tan, and that healthy brown skin is actually a precursor to rapid aging and particularly nasty skin cancers," he said.

The public health officer also said the new rules will have an impact on people operating tanning salons.

"There are aspects of this that will prevent some people from continuing having tanning beds, you need to make sure you have trained operators, that people are signing consent forms, that their age and skin types are being assessed," he said.

The new guidelines are voluntary for businesses right now,  but Van Buynder says they could become law if industry ignores them.

The health department is going to monitor the industry's compliance with the new regulations. Van Buynder said the guidelines will be voluntary for now but that could change.

"We will run an audit in six to 12 months time and if it looks like the tanning operators are ignoring the message then we certainly will be going to government to request that they look at the possibility of legislating all of this in and regulating the industry more formally," he said.

Van Buynder said the province will also launch a new education campaign specifically warning young people of the risks of tanning.

Industry rules under spotlight

The New Brunswick regulations come a few weeks after Doctors Nova Scotia urged that province to ban the use of tanning beds by people under the age of 18.

Canada has a voluntary set of regulations for the tanning industry. Health Canada says children under 16 should not use tanning beds.

France has banned people under 18 from using the tanning beds and Ireland has outlawed kids under 16 from using them.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization that researches the causes of human cancers, moved tanning beds to its highest cancer-risk category.

In a report published in the medical journal Lancet Oncology on July 29, 2009, the organization said tanning beds are carcinogenic to humans.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed charges on May 20 against the tanning industry after a March 2008 advertising campaign that portrayed tanning as safe and beneficial.

Among the statements the FTC took exception to:

• Indoor tanning is safer than tanning outdoors because the amount of ultraviolet light received when tanning indoors is monitored and controlled.
• Research shows that vitamin D supplements may harm the body's ability to fight disease.
• A National Academy of Sciences study determined that "the risks of not getting enough ultraviolet light far outweigh the hypothetical risk of skin cancer."