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Skin cancer sunbed risk for 250,000 children
 

November 13, 2009 @ 8:30 am Posted By Michelle Rutherford
 

A quarter of a million children in England are at risk from skin cancer from sunbeds, researchers have warned today.

Concerned researchers have therefore called for the use of sunbeds by children to be banned in England, as the case in place in Wales and Scotland.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Catherine Thomson from Cancer Research UK and Professor Chris Twelves from Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine & St James’s University Hospital in Leeds, say that sunbeds raise serious issues.

Ms Thomson and Prof Twelves point to two studies, recently carried out by Cancer Research UK involving over 9000 children aged 11-17 in England. The first, a national prevalence study of 3,101 children, found six per cent of 11-17 year olds had used a sunbed, the average age of first use being just 14.

In the second study of 6,209 children in six cities, sunbed use was highest in Liverpool and Sunderland, reaching 51 per cent and 48 per cent respectively among 15-17 year old girls, with over 40 per cent using them weekly.

“This rate of sunbed use would lead to more than an estimated quarter of a million 11-17 year olds being put at increased risk of developing malignant melanoma,” the authors said.

“National legislation to limit access to sunbed salons to those over 18, and close down unsupervised or coin operated salons, is required to stop more children being put at unnecessary risk of developing skin cancer.”

The research also found supervision of sunbed use was poor. Nationally, of those children who used sunbeds, 23.2 per cent did so at home. The remaining three quarters had used tanning/beauty salons or gym/leisure centres, where more than one in five had been unsupervised. ADNFCR-2262-ID-19457889-ADNFCR

 
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