Which came first: over-the-top Sun Scare attacks on indoor tanning, or the advent of the vitamin D story?

Go back 20 years and the answer is pretty clear: Sun Scare was in full bloom long before anyone had heard of “The Sunshine Vitamin.”

In 1995 — long before anyone in the tanning market was even talking about vitamin D — the American Academy of Dermatology lobbied the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to totally ban all non-medical sunbed usage in the United States. The story got huge press in early 1995.

Armed with a resolution pushed through the American Medical Association, the AAD used the results of a 1994 Swedish survey-study to call for an all-out ban. The FDA held a three-day symposium exploring that possibility. When a research panel agreed that the Swedish study didn’t actually say what the AAD claimed (they were promoting one statistical outlier in the study as if it represented the whole study), the idea of an outright ban was quickly abandoned.

Three years earlier, the AAD got national press by highlighting attacks on the alleged dangers of indoor tanning salons at their annual meeting, touting a North Carolina study they said showed that most salons weren’t trained. As it turned out, the survey for the 32-person study was administered at a training course, which is why most of the respondents weren’t yet trained.

So, the dermatology lobby’s 20-year war on tanning salons and anything pro-UV started 10 years before anyone was even talking about vitamin D. But, why?

Just as it is today, it’s not about accurate science; it’s all about the money.

Click here to read more in the latest issue of Smart Tan Magazine.