WASHINGTON — Just as millions head to tanning beds to prepare for spring break, the Food and Drug Administration will be debating how to toughen warnings that those sunlamps pose a cancer risk.
Yes, sunburns are particularly dangerous. But there is increasing scientific consensus that there is no such thing as a safe tan, either.
This is a message that Katie Donnar, 18, dismissed until a year ago when, preparing for the Miss Indiana pageant, she discovered a growth on her leg — an early-stage melanoma. Melanoma is the most dangerous form of skin cancer.
She can’t prove tanning beds are to blame, but she started using them in sixth grade.
“It seemed somewhat of a myth that I was putting myself at risk,” said Donnar, of Bruceville, Ind., who found the melanoma before it could spread. “The warning label was so small, nothing to make me stop and think, ‘This is real.’ “
The World Health Organization’s cancer division last summer listed tanning beds as definitive cancer-causers, right alongside the ultraviolet radiation that both they and the sun emit.
In March, the FDA’s scientific advisers open a public hearing to explore stricter tanning-bed regulation, both stiffer warnings and reclassifying them to allow other steps. “We don’t recommend using them at all, but we know people do use them, so we want to make them as low-risk as possible,” said FDA UV radiation specialist Sharon Miller.
