WASHINGTON — Indoor tanning comes with health risks, and congressional Democrats on Wednesday accused the indoor-tanning industry of providing false and misleading information about those risks.
The criticism follows an investigation in which Democratic staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including college interns, phoned salons representing themselves as teenage girls considering purchasing tanning sessions for the first time.
Committee Democrats, led by Rep. Henry Waxman of California, said calls to 300 salons nationwide and a review of advertising found that the vast majority provided “false information about the serious risks of indoor tanning and made specious claims about the health benefits that indoor tanning provides.”
The report comes as indoor tanning is facing greater scrutiny from lawmakers.
California recently became the first state to ban anyone younger than 18 from using indoor tanning beds. In Congress, lawmakers are pushing for the Food and Drug Administration to strengthen its regulation of the industry.
John Overstreet, executive director of the Indoor Tanning Association in Washington, said most salons seek parental consent for customers younger than 18.
“If those who were conducting the survey had actually visited a professional tanning salon and were indeed under 18, they and their parents would have had a more thorough conversation about the tanning process and the potential risks of overexposure,” the trade group said in a statement.
