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Tanning Is A Major Issue For Minors

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By JESSICA GRESKO

The Associated Press

Published: March 26, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - Miss Florida Teen USA Kayla Collier was 15 when she first visited a tanning salon so the stage lights at a local pageant wouldn't make her fair skin look ghostly white.

That year, as she tried on homecoming dresses, her mother noticed what looked like a scab on her back. It turned out to be skin cancer.

She can't irrefutably link the tanning to her cancer, but Collier, now 18 and healthy, won't be back under the bulbs. On Wednesday, her voice catching, she asked Florida lawmakers to keep people younger than 16 from using tanning beds. "I know teenagers that go every day, every week, twice a day sometimes, to tanning beds," Collier said.

Florida is among 17 states, including Hawaii, considering laws this year that would restrict indoor tanning by minors. Proposals would ban teens from tanning salons or require them to get notes from parents or doctors.

After the Florida bill passed a Senate committee, Collier's mother, Claire, who had signed the permission form that allowed her daughter to tan, said she hopes the full Legislature will approve it.

"Do you really realize that your daughter or son - after just a few times in the tanning bed - could have melanoma? I didn't," she said.

Opponents say the tanning beds are safe for teens and their use should be up to parents, not states.

Persuading teens to stop tanning could be tough. According to one study released in 2002, one-quarter of people age 15 to 18 had used indoor tanning in the past year.

Florida requires parental approval before minors can use tanning salons. If the new law passes, it would be among the strictest in the nation.

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