The North American dermatology community typically targets the month of May to discuss melanoma awareness. And while sun awareness and sunburn prevention are important topics, dermatology’s melanoma awareness campaigns generally ignore important points. There arguably is more misinformation about skin cancer than any other form of cancer, and most of it involves distorting the nature of skin cancer’s complex relationship with sun exposure. Consider:

1. Melanoma skin cancer is most common in people who work indoors — not in those who work outdoors. Further, melanoma skin cancer occurs most often on parts of the body that are not regularly exposed to the sun.
2. 18 of 22 studies examining melanoma and indoor tanning have shown no statistically significant association, including the most recent and largest study. The four studies that alleged a connection did not adequately control for important confounding variables such as the subjects’ outdoor exposure to sunlight, childhood sunburns, type of tanning equipment utilized and duration and quantity of exposures. And since there is still no established mechanism explaining exactly how UV is related to melanoma, these confounders cannot be ignored.
3. Melanoma mortality rates are not rising among young women, but are increasing dramatically among older men. Yet the majority of the marketing message about this disease is directed at young women, who are the highest consumers of dermatological services, most of which are cosmetic, and the biggest consumers of skin care products.
4. The photobiology research community has determined that melanoma is most likely related to a strong pattern of burning and intermittent sun exposure in those people who are genetically predisposed to skin cancer and not simply to cumulative exposure. That suggests that a pattern of repeated sunburning is what we need to prevent. And that kind of prevention is exactly what the indoor tanning industry is doing effectively.
5. There are dermatology researchers who even question whether UV and melanoma are related at all — such as dermatopathology pioneer Dr. Bernard Ackerman and British dermatology researcher Dr. Sam Shuster.