Sunbeds: Dying to be brown

New rules for the use of sunbeds are "toothless", say cancer experts, as fears grow that young women are putting their lives at risk.

The popularity of sunbedding has soared in the past few years and health experts are concerned about a lack of regulation in the tanning industry, especially for teenagers.

A report by the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer has shown there is a 75 per cent increase in the risk of developing melanoma for those who begin using a sunbed in their teens or early 20s.

Last year a study by the Queensland Institute of Medical Research went even further, finding that people who first used a sunbed under the age of 35 increased the risk by 98 per cent.

Despite the evidence - and regardless of New Zealand and Australia having the highest rates of melanoma in the world - there is no official regulation of the sunbed industry here.

Malignant melanoma is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among young women in New Zealand. In 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, 17 young women aged between 15 and 24 were diagnosed with malignant melanoma, compared to 10 males of the same ages.

In the 25-35 age bracket, 62 women were diagnosed with the deadly skin cancer, more than double the figure for males.

Last year, a committee of New Zealand and Australian experts revised the countries' joint sunbed standards to ban sunbed use for under-18s and those with extremely fair skin, and ban unsupervised operations.

In Australia, these standards are becoming mandatory in every state. Victoria led the charge for regulation after the death of 26-year-old Clare Oliver from melanoma in 2007. Before her death, Oliver attributed her cancer to sunbed use and campaigned against them.

In New Zealand standards remain voluntary. "They're a bit toothless, unfortunately," said Dr Judith Galtry, the Cancer Society's skin control adviser who helped revise the standards. "The Government hasn't taken that level of interest in making them compulsory."

Gabrielle Brown of the Indoor Tanning Association New Zealand said the industry did not object to being regulated but was critical of how the standards were revised. There was no consultation with the sunbed industry, she said, and the association was planning to lay a complaint with Standards New Zealand.

"The process was flawed," said Brown. "How can you expect an industry to welcome a standard that has been created by people who are publicly opposed to that industry?"

A Consumers Institute survey of 30 sunbeds in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch in 2006 found safety practices at many sunbed operations were lax.

A similar survey by the Green Party in 2007 in Wellington found nearly half the sunbed operators enforced no age limit.

In 2007, in response to questions from Green MP Sue Kedgley, then-Minister of Health Pete Hodgson said he would ask the Ministry of Health to look into the issue of sunbed safety.

But Kedgley says nothing was done. "Given the magnitude of the risk, a responsible Government should regulate the industry," she says.

Galtry is also frustrated. "The Government hasn't seen it as a high priority. They should be looking at this issue ... and across the Tasman to what is happening there."

Dr Fran McGrath, the Ministry of Health's deputy director of public health, said the ministry was working with district health boards to raise awareness of the regulations with sunbed operators and an awareness survey was planned.

SUNBEDDER WEANS HERSELF OFF SOLARIUMS

Angela Beswick was a fanatical sunbedder in her teenage years, but the 21-year-old has now seen the error of her ways.

Beswick, of Auckland's North Shore, had her first sunbed at 15 with the permission of her mother. Once she turned 16, the solarium she went to allowed her to sunbed without parental permission.

"I could go whenever I pleased so I'd go about four or five times a week," says Beswick. "I was the kid who came to school in the middle of winter looking like I'd just been to Hawaii. I was really brown."

Beswick has since read about the risks of sunbeds and a cousin being diagnosed with melanoma has brought home the danger.

She says she still sunbeds, but only "very occasionally".

Beswick now thinks sunbeds need to be regulated much more strictly. "I think they need to put tighter restrictions on them.

"I don't think that someone under the age of 18 should be able to walk in and have a sunbed. I was ignorant and very immature at the age of 16 and I was walking in there four times a week," she says.

"They're quite happy to take your money. They don't really care how it will affect you later in life and you're too young to register that."