Sunbeds: 250,000 English kids at risk of cancer

Relax News

Friday, 13 November 2009

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A quarter of a million children in England aged 11 to 17 face a higher risk of developing malignant skin cancer by using tanning beds, researchers said Friday.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the researchers called for urgent legislation to stop sunbed use by minors in England, as is already the case for Scotland and Wales.

The risk of melanoma - the most lethal form of skin cancer - increases by 75 percent when use of tanning devices starts before the age of 30, according to a study published earlier this year in Britain's The Lancet Oncology.

In July, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) placed tanning beds alongside cigarettes and asbestos as a top-level cancer threat.

Current rates of use in England "would lead to more than an estimated quarter of a million 11- to 17-year-olds being put at risk of developing malignant melanoma," wrote Catherine Thomson from Cancer Research UK and Professor Chris Twelves from St James's University Hospital in Leeds.

"National legislation to limit access to sunbed salons to those over 18, and close down unsupervised or coin operated salons, is required to stop more children being put at unnecessary risk," they said.

Six percent of English youngsters in the 11-to-17 age bracket use sunbeds, according to recent studies. The average age at which the practice starts is 14.

Usage rates are nearly three times as high in the north, and more common among older girls and within economically-deprived communities.

More than a quarter of the kids who darken their skin with the devices do so at least once a month, the studies found.

Sunbed use was highest in Liverpool and Sunderland, reaching 51 percent and 48 percent respectively among 15-17 year old girls, with over 40 percent using them weekly.

mh/ri/sas

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methinks..

tommytcg wrote:

Saturday, 14 November 2009 at 02:59 am (UTC)

that the healthgiving vitamin D3, synthesised in the body from sunbeds UV, is worrying Big Farma. Now they must scare people away from the UV light. Actually, all kid,s and adults are at risk of cancer. The many causes and pathways of all cancers, a mystery to the oncologist, have been documented in H R Clark, PhD ND`s latest 669 page, 2007 work. This was done by resonance comparison for virus, bacteria, fungus, dyes, heavy metalsl etc.; sensitive Geiger counters for polonium from in-home radon gas, amalgams, chlorox beach etc.; and medical blood teste. All cancers start the same way, and interrupting any of the complex pathways rapidly stops the malignancy. Revving up the killer white blood cells allows the tumor to be digested. The answers are simple enough for the layperson to cure, and therefore to prevent all cancers. So, to reduce the risk to near zero, one needs to learn. This is not the fraud, snake oil, conspiracy theory, folklore, false hope, junk science or mumblings, that the gatekeepers scream, as I and tens of thousands of others have successfully followed and advised on, (legally), her protocols, since the early 90s. (I have no financial interest in Dr Clarks work). In this twisted age of misinformation, and while there still remains freedom on the net, one needs to look outside the box for the answers to health. There are attempts to ban all alternative health information on the net, and, it is already illegal to sell any nutritional product labelled with the benefits of that product, even despite scientific proof. A further example to the madness...cherry growers in the USA they were recently threatened with criminal charges if they continued to advertise that their certain brand of cherries addressed arthritis pain, as a scientific studies had shown.

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