Concern Over Sunbeds and Cancer

The Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS), which represents environmental, community and public health professionals mainly within local government and the private sector in Scotland, is calling on MSPs to back a Private Members Bill being placed before the Scottish Parliament which calls for nationwide licensing of premises providing sunbeds.

A REHIS survey found evidence of underage use, poor cleanliness and a lack of advice at Scotland's ever increasing number of tanning premises.

Comparing statistics with a survey in 2003:

• Scotland now has 810 sunbed salons across the country, 16 more than 3 years ago;
• although there are 10 fewer unstaffed salons than in 2003, 44 still have no controls over the age of customers, the appropriateness of their skin or medical conditions, use of eye protection, and their exposure to harmful uv radiation;
• the annual number of complaints about skin burning, underage use, people becoming trapped in equipment and poor standards of cleanliness has increased from 44 to 49;
• only 4 of Scotland's 32 local authorities still allow sunbeds in council leisure facilities: Angus, Clackmannan, Orkney and South Lanarkshire;
• Glasgow is Scotland's sunbed capital, with a remarkable 120 salons in the city, of which 19 are unstaffed;
• although none of Edinburgh's 44 sunbed parlours are unstaffed, they generated 15 complaints to the City Council, more than any other local authority;
• Aberdeen may have less than half the population of Edinburgh, but it has more sunbed salons - 46

An REHIS spokesperson said, " It is no exaggeration to say that Scotland faces a skin-cancer epidemic. The number of new cases has more than trebled in the last 30 years, with more than of 7,000 being diagnosed every year. These figures represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Environmental Health Officers have reported to us only those premises which they are aware of. Since there is no national licensing system in place, there may be many more sunbeds in hairdressers shops, beauty salons and other premises which are unknown to us.

Similarly, the level of complaints seems very low. The people using sunbeds most are the under 25s, and young people often would not know to bring concerns to their local Environmental Health Department.

Our particular concern is that there are still unsupervised salons out there. It should be a requirement that all tanning parlours are staffed with operators who can give appropriate advice and can monitor usage."

Source: Safety News