A study published Feb. 25 in the Journal “Pediatrics” is already being used to promote additional regulation of professional sunbed salons. The survey was irrelevant to professional salons. The American Suntanning Association released the following statement about the study:

This six-year old telephone survey is irrelevant when evaluating consumer safety procedures practiced in professional salons. This was data collected by phone interview six years ago — no one in this phone survey ever stepped foot in a suntanning salon, where parental consent standards and explicit consumer warning statements already are in place. Most of the non-salon businesses included in this survey are not even in business today.

The American Suntanning Association and professional tanning salons promote responsible new measures like strong parental consent laws and include warning signs in their businesses. While the study authors are using questionable survey methods to lobby for their preferred legislation, they have yet to engage our industry around efforts to promote parental consent and develop responsible legislative alternatives.

• This was a 2007 phone survey. No subject in this study ever stepped foot into a tanning facility.
• The authors admit they never asked what clients would be told when they did go to a salon, where consumer warnings are present.
• A previous survey study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology showed that 92 percent of salons do require parental consent to be signed before allowing a minor to tan.
• This study involved a high number of non-tanning salon locations that had sunbeds.
• Up to 40 percent of the tanning salons in this 2007 survey are no longer in business today.
• The survey did not differentiate responses from PEDIATRICS Volume 131, Number 3, March 2013 professional tanning facilities verses secondary businesses that may have sunbeds that were included on call lists.
• A phone survey does not represent what a salon would tell a client about the risks of UV overexposure any more than phoning a fitness facility would be likely to include warnings that exercise may be harmful – part of standard consumer warning material required to be provided at fitness facilities.
• The authors of this study are actively lobbying for parental consent legislation, but have never reached out to the tanning industry to jointly achieve their goal, despite the fact that the industry is in favor of parental consent standards and promotes that actively.

The professional tanning community would work cooperatively with this group or any group that wished to constructively re-enforce the standard of written parental consent for tanners under 18.

Click here to download a PDF of this advisory from our Resource Library for Smart Tan members.