Australia bans tanning beds to fight cancer
Print Edition
MOST Australian states and territories are set to ban commercial tanning beds from today, in a country with one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.
The ban, which comes into force in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and in the Australian Capital Territory, will make Australia the second nation after Brazil to impose such a restriction.
Authorities in Western Australia said they also will implement a ban, but have yet to announce a start date. There are no commercial solariums in the only other part of Australia — Northern Territory.
Cancer Council Australia welcomed the ban, which it has long pushed for, saying it will help to reduce rates of skin cancer, which affects two out of three Australians by age 70.
“Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world,” said Advocacy Director Paul Grogan.
“Solariums expose users to extremely high levels of UV radiation, greatly increasing their risk of melanoma and other skin cancers,” he said.
Australia is sometimes referred to as the sunburnt country, where beaches are thronged with bathers basking under blue skies and the rates of melanoma, a potentially fatal form of skin cancer, are the highest in the world.
Health campaigners have long pushed to promote awareness of the dangers of exposure to the sun, urging people to wear sunscreen, hats and sunglasses.They have warned also that tanning on a sunbed is not safe.
“Queensland already has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world and there’s no question there’s a link between regular sunbed use and the incidence of malignant melanoma,” the state’s interim Health Minister Mark McArdle said.
The incidence of skin cancer in Australia is two to three times the rates in Canada, the United States and Britain, the Cancer Council said.
More than 2,000 Australians died from skin cancer in 2011, the majority from melanoma, which is caused by harmful ultraviolet light from the sun, it said.
Australia’s proximity to Antarctica, where there is a hole in the ozone layer which normally filters out UV rays, also increases the risk.
Previous research suggested that the use of sunbeds by people aged 18 to 39 increases their risk of developing melanoma, the most common form of cancer among young Australians, by an average of 41 percent.
The ban was supported by a majority of Australians, the council said, in a recent survey of 6,300 people, while fewer adults and youths said they had used a solarium in the past year.
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