ASA, Oct. 27, 2017 — Authors of a University of Wisconsin survey-study published Thursday alleging non-compliance by U.S. tanning salons with different state age restriction regulations may have fraudulently misrepresented the telephone survey’s findings.

“This was a telephone survey. No one associated with this survey ever stepped foot into a tanning salon or actually attempted to tan,”  said Joseph Levy, Director of Scientific Affairs for the American Suntanning Association. “Not a single business contacted in this survey actually allowed a teenager to use UV tanning services without parental consent or violated any law.”

Multiple press reports Thursday about the study — “Tanning Salon Compliance Rates in States With Legislation to Protect Youth Access to UV Tanning, published in JAMA-Dermatology — gave readers the impression that salons actually tanned teenagers a year-younger than state regulations allowed. The authors called random numbers from YellowPages.com in 42 states, alleged that they were teenagers who wanted to tan before a family vacation, but did not verify that they were actually talking to a salon operator and never actually stepped foot into a single tanning salon.

And that’s not the worst part

•  The authors listed salons as “non-compliant” if the salon exceeded state regulations and didn’t allow teens to tan in states that allow it. That accounted for 11.3 percent of the salons the authors claimed were not compliant. “How can you list that as non-compliant unless you are trying to mislead?” Levy asked. “The authors list that way down in their text as a confounder, but the press never saw it.”
• Only 1 percent of the 427 salons contacted actually told the caller they would allow a minor to tan if under-18 tanning was not permitted.
• The researchers listed salons as non-compliant if they did not ask the caller how old they were, even if the caller did not mention his or her age — not taking into account that this question would be asked in the salon.
• The authors are themselves advocates for tighter under-18 restrictions for UV tanning in salons — which not only adds bias to the survey, but seems to have blinded them to this key point: 41 percent of all sunbed use today occurs in non-salon settings, according to government data — an all-time high. Prohibiting clients under 18 from being able to use sunbeds in a professional salon with their parents’ written consent has driven teenage sunbed clients in those states to non-regulated, non-salon sunbed usage in homes, gyms, apartment complexes and other locations without professional operators. Sunburn is much more common in non-salon locations.

The American Suntanning Association and its members, which operate more than 1,000 professional salons throughout the country, have supported compliance with indoor tanning standards for decades, including those related to tanning by minors.