“Tan Ban” Weighed

Milena Kotara (pictured) stepped into Tommy’s Tanning on Whalley Avenue one day last week to get a head start on her tan before heading to Florida for spring break. The SCSU student said said she isn’t concerned about the warnings from dermatology experts that she may have increased her chances of getting cancer.

“I don’t like being pale,” she explained.

Some health experts are worried. They’re trying to get a bill through the state legislature that would that would tighten restrictions on what kind of in-store tanning customers like Kotara (pictured) use. It would require tanning salons to post warnings about the health dangers of tanning and require clients to sign a waiver with explicit health warnings.

That has pitted public-health advocates against participants in an established local business community.

In an interview in his Whalley Avenue salon, Ed Kelleher (pictured), president of Tommy’s Tanning (and brother of founder Tommy Kelleher) cited various reasons his customers come: mostly cosmetic, but also for relaxation and even for health, i.e., for treatment of conditions like psoriasis and eczema. He said many patients with certain skin conditions realize they can treat their ailments with UV radiation more economically and more conveniently in tanning salons than by going to medical specialists.

The company recognizes the potential dangers of ultraviolet radiation — and warns of them in its waiver, on the walls of the tanning booths, and on the beds themselves. Kelleher said use is strictly controlled to prevent an overdose, which he believes makes them safe. Potential clients must fill out a form to determine their skin type, their past experience with tanning salons, medication they’re taking, before they can sign up. Those with the lightest of six skin shades are not allowed to use the beds. And the company goes above and beyond the state law requiring that those 16 and under get written permission from their parents: It requires those 18 and under to get written permission from a parent who is present.

“We think we do it in a responsible, smart way to minimize the potential risks and maximize the potential benefits,” Kelleher said.

Since joining two months ago, Kotara said, she has come in every day, ​“but once I get a little color, I’ll come in two or three times a week.”

She exemplifies what dermatologist James Spencer said is the typical tanning salon client — a young, white female who tans both indoors and outdoors. Studies show up to 70 percent of users fit that demographic.

“The National Institutes of Health declared indoor tanning a known carcinogen,” he said in a phone interview from his office in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida. ​“The reason people go is for a cosmetic tan; the down side is the more you do it, the more you increase your risk of developing skin cancer.

“An irony of indoor tanning is that ultraviolet light is what causes wrinkling and leathery skin, so you’re doing something for beauty and in the long run it makes you look old and ugly. People ask, ​‘Is one worse than the other?’ and the answer is, Nobody does just one. People who are indoor tanners go to the beach, too. The most popular bulbs in tanning beds mimic the sun, which is 95 percent UVA rays and five percent UVB.” In other words, whatever is harmful about the sun’s rays (about which there seems to be no dispute), is also harmful about the UV radiation in tanning beds.

The World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Dermatology have all determined that indoor tanning — as well as exposure to the sun outdoors — is carcinogenic. The Academy is running a public service campaign about it. 

The tanning industry rebuts those claims.

Joe Levy, executive director of the International Smart Tan Network, which represents tanning salons, argued in a phone interview that those professional and scientific associations are misleading the public, by cherry-picking data or reporting it out of context. He is the go-to guy on the subject, since Bernard Ackerman, the dermatologist who was the bete noir of his profession (and a hero to the tanning industry), died in 2008. Levy insisted that no correlation has been proven between UV exposure and melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.

Spencer, who is also an associate professor of dermatology at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said since no lab animals get melanoma, the only way to show a correlation is through epidemiological studies, which look at the distribution and determinants of disease.

Spencer said one example is when British or Irish individuals move to sunnier Australia, their incidence of melanoma skyrockets. As for the Vitamin D issue, he said fair-skinned individuals can absorb enough in just a few minutes a day outside, obviating the need to lie in a tanning bed.

Spencer responded that inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis and eczema improve under UV light because the radiation reduces inflammation by suppressing the immune system. But, he added, ​“There’s no question that it increases your risk of both squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma — no question; but your psoriasis is ruining your life.” So the patient can consider the pros and cons and provide informed consent, and the dermatologist can prescribe the minimum dose to get results. ​“In my opinion,” he said, ​“doctors shouldn’t send people to tanning salons.”

There are tanning beds in both the men’s and women’s locker room at Planet Fitness in Hamden. David Itchkawitz (pictured), who works the front desk, said he believes indoor tanning is harmful and tries to impress the dangers on members who want to use them. The women’s beds allow for a maximum of 20 minutes. ​“Just yesterday,” he said, ​“a young woman came in and wanted to go for 20 minutes, but it was her first time so I told her she had to start at five minutes.” Long story short, he held his ground, she went in for five minutes, and she cursed him on the way out.

He’s holding the special eye protection (either reusable or single use) that clients are required to wear to avoid damage to their retinas. ​“One time a guy came in and said he’d just lay a dollar bill over his eyes,” Itchkawitz said, ​“but I told him that wasn’t good enough.”

Nancy Alderman (pictured in her North Haven home), president of Environment and Human Health, Inc., supported the bill that had a hearing in early March before the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee. But she testified that it should be stronger. ​“What the legislature should do is ban tanning beds for anyone 18 or younger,” she said, because the younger a person is exposed to UV rays (whether in a tanning bed or outdoors), the greater the chance of health problems later in life.

Jane Campo knows that from experience. She also testified at that hearing. The Stamford resident, now 49, said she was ​“a big sun person, so when I couldn’t go out in the sun, I went to the tanning salons,” which she did at least three times a week between the ages of 16 and 22. ​“I just didn’t know they were carcinogenic,” she added. Last summer she was headed to Hawaii with her daughters, and went to a tanning salon for the first time in a long time, to get a base tan. ​“I went to the tanning booth, thinking technology was better [than the sun]. I had moles and I saw one on my leg change to shiny. I thought that was odd. I covered it when I went back to the tanning booth. Then I saw a spot on my other leg. I asked my husband [a physician] to look at it and he said it had to be removed. I was literally driving to the airport to go to Hawaii and I got a call on my cell phone and was told I had melanoma. When I got back I had to have them excised; I had two melanomas and 18 biopsies. Every three months I have to have my body scanned for new melanomas. The diagnosis was just devastating; melanoma is the worst skin cancer you can get — it’s lethal. I caught them before they went deeper, which would have been likely a worse prognosis.”

Planet Fitness manager Frank Proscino said tanning bed users at his facility are about half female and half male (though the males tend to be older), and that about 20 percent of their gym members pay extra to use them. He said he’d support a bill requiring more warning labels but would oppose any ​“tan ban” on those 18 and under. ​“No one is going to say you can’t go out in the sun,” he reasoned.

Meanwhile, Tommy’s Tanning operates a dozen tanning salons around the state, and is planning to open more.

Rep. Betsy Ritter, co-chair of the Public Health Committee, said the committee heard testimony from all sides at the recent hearing, but she was somewhat doubtful that the bill would make it through the entire legislative process in this year’s short session, which must focus by law on budget issues.