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Kids will require parents' consent to use tanning beds

By: Bruce Owen

Posted: 05/5/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

That fake tan is going to be harder to get in Manitoba.

St. Norbert NDP MLA Marilyn Brick introduced a private member's bill Tuesday that, when put into law, will make it tougher for younger people to use tanning beds.

New rules

Children under 18 must have written consent from parent or guardian to use a tanning bed.

Salon operators must post warning signs about the health risks of using tanning equipment.

People who use tanning salons will now have to pay the provincial sales tax.

Brick said her name is on the bill because both her father and brother have battled skin cancer, although not related to tanning booths.

"Parents have said that they are in favour of this," Brick said. "Their girls, in particular, are tanning now with it being grad (season). The young girls say that they would like to see themselves as having a suntan when they show their grad dress off."

The new rules call for people under 18 to get their parents' blessing before they hop in a tanning bed, and for operators to post warning signs about the cancer risk of exposing skin to ultraviolet rays.

Violations would be penalized under the Public Health Act.

Steve Gilroy, executive director of the Joint Canadian Tanning Association, said member salons have no problems with Brick's bill. The JCTA represents about 75 per cent of salons in Manitoba.

Gilroy said many salons already practise what the government wants, including having certified operators time a customer's stay in a bed so they don't tan too long. He said the association wants to meet with the province so both sides can come up with suitable language for warning labels.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in Canada, with more than 80,000 people newly diagnosed with one of three types in 2009, including 5,000 with malignant melanoma, which poses the highest risk. The Canadian Cancer Society estimated 940 Canadians would die of malignant melanoma in 2009.

Last July, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer moved tanning beds into its highest cancer-risk category and called them "carcinogenic to humans." It said people under 35 are at the highest risk.

The bill is the second hit against salons by the province this year. In the new budget, salons will have to start paying the provincial sales tax later this year. Brick's bill will be put into law once it's proclaimed and after regulations -- the nuts and bolts of the law -- are crafted by the province.

Tedd Tribe, a melanoma survivor and spokesman for the Melanoma Self-Support Group, said the bill could save lives.

Manitoba Conservative Selkirk-Interlake MP James Bezan has introduced a similar private member's bill in the House of Commons.

bruce.owen@feepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 5, 2010 A6

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