CTVNews reports:
Ontario will join other provinces in banning the use of tanning beds by minors in an effort to prevent skin cancer, years after health organizations and survivors of the deadly disease started pushing for the law.
The bill, which passed unanimously in the legislature Wednesday, will ban the sale of tanning services to youth under the age of 18 and require operators to request identification from anyone who appears to be under 25.
This is fantastic news! I can see your next post is titled “There is no evidence that indoor tanning is meaningfully different than sunlight — except possibly that exposures are more controlled”; but isn’t that beside the point? Isn’t the real issue that any kind of exposure to UV, be it naturally when you’re outside or when you use a sun bed, has a significant and detrimental effect on the health of our skin and is a major contributor to deadly forms of skin cancer? We at Shun the Sun are campaigning for a change to the stigma in society that to be beautiful you must be tanned. While banning young people from using tanning beds may not stop them from going to the beach to tan, it is a step in the right direction in stimulating effective dialogue in the community concerning the risks of UV exposure, particularly for youths (as that is when the most significant damage is done to your skin). We want people to step back and look at the risks associated with their ‘tanning’ actions and legislation like this certainly encourages that.
For more information on how to protect your naturally beautiful skin, head on over to http://shunthesun1.wordpress.com/