FDA proposes indoor tanning ban on minors to fight skin cancer

Washington

THE US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday proposed barring everyone under 18 from using tanning beds, a sweeping move that medical experts say is a major step towards reducing the risk of skin cancer in the United States.

For decades, medical researchers saw indoor tanning as little more than a curiosity. But evidence has been gathering that tanning beds may play more of a role in the nation's cancer numbers than originally thought.

A review of the scientific research published last year estimated that tanning beds account for as many as 400,000 cases of skin cancer in the US each year, including 6,000 cases of melanoma, the deadliest form.

And unlike most other cancers, where the rates of new cases are flat or declining, melanoma has continued to rise by about 3 per cent a year for the last couple of decades. Health experts worry that tanning beds - still popular, particularly among young wome…