Dr. Jennifer Ashton (cbsnews.com)
Even though the Food and Drug Administration has always said indoor tanning is safe, new skin cancer research released by The World Health Organization may be changing things.
The study, concluded last summer, found indoor tanning is just as cancer-causing as the ultraviolet radiation of the sun.
FACT: Thirty million Americans visit indoor tanning salons each year.
With this in mind, federal health regulators are considering new rules at a hearing Thursday morning. It could result in a government crackdown on tanning beds. According to the Associated Press, the FDA will ask a panel of outside doctors to consider a range of precautionary steps, including changing how sunlamps are regulated.
“If you ask the dermatologists, the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’ (to safe tanning). We have to understand that every time our skin gets dark, it is reflecting on the cellular level damage that potentially can lead to carcinogenic changes and the resulting skin cancer,” said Dr. Jennifer Ashton, CBS News Correspondent on the morning show.
During examination look for the following:
• A change or an increase in the size or thickness of a mole or spot.
• Change in color or texture of the mole. You want it to be regular and not irregular.
• Irregularity in the border of a mole. That’s where we talk about the asymmetry, and if it’s larger than a quarter of an inch, which is about the diameter of a pencil eraser, that could also be a warning sign.
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