Please note, this bill deals specifically with the deadly effects of indoor tanning beds which emit ultraviolet rays. Medical research has shown the light from these indoor tanning beds to be carcinogenic. "Sunless tanning" which utilizes spray-on tanning would be exempt under this proposal. Senator Radogno

Do we seriously have nothing better to do than to pass legislation like this? Are large, sugary drinks that you think we shouldn't have next? Is this the most important topic or even in the top 500 that we should be concerning ourselves with in a state that is ranked almost dead last economically? What about the thousands of dollars from each taxpayer that are being squandered that could be used for health services for families instead? Parents already have to approve of a child under the age of 18 to partake in tanning services correct? Is the plan that the government now take over parenting of all of our children since you apparently know what is best for us? If I am taking the kids down to Florida for a week what is wrong with prepping them in a tanning salon so that they do not get scorched in the event the sun block wears off? Spray on tanning does not prevent sunburns from what I understand so you are essence proposing kids out in the sun in an unmonitored (untimed) fashion as a healthier alternative? What are you going to do to enforce this - question and arrest tan kids or spend law enforcement resources targeting facilities that allow minors to tan? Unbelievable!

Minors most certainly should be banned from indoor tanning beds!

A youth Tanning Bed ban sends a clear message UV radiation is a recognized carcinogen. It encourages responsible sun exposure.

This quote from age 9 of the U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE Investigative Report titled 'False and Misleading Health Information Provided to Teens by the Indoor Tanning Industry', indicates parental consent does not reduce youth tanners.

"Studies of compliance with parental consent laws in Texas, North Carolina, and Minnesota and Massachusetts have found tanning salon compliance rates of 11%, 13%, and 19%, respectively. Despite an increase over the last decade in states requiring some form of parental permission for indoor tanning, researchers have found no measurable decrease in indoor tanning among older adolescent girls."

http://www.aahperd.org/aahe/about/updates/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=169705

The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly supports a ban:

" Federal, state, and local governments should work toward passing legislation to ban minors' access to tanning salons. Governments should work to ensure that such legislation is enforced."
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/3/588.full

American Academy of Pediatrics:

" Although they agree that vitamin D is important for good health, leaders in skin cancer prevention oppose intentional sun exposure to induce vitamin D production, because UVR is a known human carcinogen. There have been no studies of children suggesting a level of sun exposure that would negate the need to comply with dietary vitamin D recommendations."

(NO studies of children)
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/3/588.full

Canadian Paediatric Society:

"While the precise roles of specific UV wavelengths in both melanin production and carcinogenesis are still to be fully elucidated, DNA damage appears to be the key intermediary for both. Tanning induced by UVR that is devoid of carcinogenic risk may be scientifically impossible."

"Relying on UVR as a source of vitamin D has been challenged because of the substantial overlap of DNA damage from such exposure and the production of vitamin D. Moreover, exposure to UVR is complicated by the quantity of skin exposed, the darkness or pigmentation of that skin, the wavelength or energy of the source (which varies with the time of year and latitude), and the degree of one's vitamin D deficiency. Artificial UVR exposure further compounds matters with the mix, intensity and variability of UVA and UVB generated by tanning bed emitters and is neither a reliable or advisable source of vitamin D."

http://www.cps.ca/documents/position/tanning-facilities

FDA quote:
"In an NCI-sponsored study published in September 2009 in the Archives of Dermatology, the study researchers hired and trained college students to pose as 15-year-old, fair-skinned girls who had never tanned before. By telephone, the students asked more than 3,600 tanning facilities in all 50 states about their practices.

Less than 11 percent of the facilities followed FDA's recommended exposure schedule of three or fewer sessions the first week. About 71 percent said they would allow a teen to tan all seven days the first week, and many promoted frequent tanning with "unlimited tanning" discount price packages. "

http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm186687.htm

Is that your long winded way of saying exposure to UV radiation can cause health problems? *NewsFlash* I guess we as a society have only been aware of this for the last 80 years hence the reason for the parental signatures, the advent and promotion of sunscreen, etc. Your position, from what I can gather, is 2 fold: First, the current restriction in place isn’t effective (you dont even ask yourself why and instead attempt to justify new legislation but we will bring that up again later). Second, the way to send a clear message is for the government to outright ban behavior it deems dangerous – controlling instead of educating, prohibition of sorts. Back to point one, is it not enough to push for more enforcement of the restriction already in place? Oh wait, that would mean the politicians name wouldn't be in the paper for proposing a brand new law and wasting millions of taxpayers dollars. The reality is the legislation being proposed has nothing to do with any of this but rather we have a bunch of lawmakers that struggle to find something of value to pass to get some publicity. Radogno knows this is low hanging fruit, low controversy type of proposal that most people aren’t going to fight because they have more important things to focus on. Not that they agree with banning it or that current measures couldn’t simply be enforced, they just do not care enough either way to stop it.

On the bright side, as a collegue of mine stated, at least our legislators are focusing on low value topics like this instead of doing damage elsewhere. Like large sugary drinks in NYC and sex toys in Georgia. All by a government that wants to be the parent of our children, the moral guide for the people, and that has absolutely no respect the rights and freedoms of the individual. All this, millions of dollars, and in the end, all a child has to do is grab a towel and go sit in the yard or go to the friends house that has a tanning booth. Now that we have heard your proposal – let me tell you mine. We should implement a system whereby the study of ANY new legislation must be approved by the voters for funding to be appropriated including time spent by government staff. Each proposal must be attached to the true cost of performing the study as well as proposed costs/benefits in a concise, easy to understand format (addendums are welcome). We should do the same thing for legislative proposals at any other stage as well. Once a quater, voters will be asked to vote on all proposals for that particular period with the majority making the decision for the state, not politicians that weren’t elected to pass tanning bed legislation in the first place. Lets take some authority away from legislators and put it back into the hands of the people and we can fix this state. Clearly the politicians have shown they are incapable of handling such responsibility.