Good sunbed operators maligned unfairly

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Good sunbed operators maligned unfairly, says Indoor Tanning Association

The Indoor Tanning Association NZ is disappointed to see comments released by the Cancer Society this week that laud an updated revision of the industry Standard and calling again for regulation.

Gabrielle Brown, spokesperson for INTANZ, says that the industry absolutely supports the idea of a workable Standard of guidelines, and would even welcome legislation provided that the industry was fully involved. “The irony is that there is nothing much that is new in this revision,” says Mrs. Brown. “Consumers know that good solaria operators are already going above and beyond the requirements set out by the revised Standard.”

INTANZ was formed with a stated ambition to protect individual freedom to tan, and to help to raise industry Standards after a slew of particularly damaging negative press over the last few years. The group struggled to gain a position on the Australasian Standards Review Committee in time to have a say on the revision. “In the end any influence we may have had in the process was disregarded,” explains Mrs. Brown. “Funding and timetable clashes did not permit us to attend the committee meetings in Australia, and a review of the meetings’ minutes revealed that scant consideration was given to any of the submissions we made. When the final ballot was circulated, INTANZ cast a negative vote on three particular points.”

Of particular concern to the organization is the preface of the draft revision and an assertion of increased evidence regarding solaria use and skin cancer, particularly melanoma skin cancer. INTANZ refutes the validity of this claim, explaining that the origin of the data is a report which does not allow for key confounding factors and relies on relative risk statistics to make an assumption about the connection between solaria use and skin cancer which is not statistically valid.

INTANZ also did not accept data on effective UV irradiance measures, nor on the restriction on sunbed providers to promote any benefits from indoor tanning other than cosmetic. “We absolutely agree that sunbed operators must not make unsubstantiated claims about sunbed use, and that information must be disclosed in a balanced way,” says Mrs. Brown. “But to effectively muzzle us- restricting us from even talking about some of the key reasons that our clients tan with us- like sunburn prevention, psoriasis relief, vitamin D synthesis… that’s ridiculous. It’s like restricting a weight management clinic from talking to their customers about the other possible health implications of weight loss.”

Despite their negative vote, INTANZ were informed that the committee had resolved these points ‘to the committee’s satisfaction’- without consultation or mediation with INTANZ- and that the revision was to go ahead.

Now the new Standard has been published, and INTANZ say they are disappointed by comments from both The Cancer Society and the Green Party this week.

“The Cancer Society’s stated position on solarium use is absolute intolerance. They recommend that no person use a solarium at any time, ever.” Mrs. Brown says.

“Dr. Judith Galtry, Cancer Control Advisor, has rejected our overtures to co-operation and publicly refused to work with us, saying that “it would be difficult to work with an organization that did not share its vision”. We continue to be baffled as to why an organization which does not tolerate our existence makes comment on the workings of the industry at all.”

Mrs Brown continues, “Absolutely- it is hard for us to share the vision of the Cancer Society, which aims to see our entire industry out of business! But we have to start somewhere. If the goal of every group concerned ultimately includes the protection of public health, then the ‘anti-tanning’ lobby will have to talk to us eventually. It’s simply undemocratic that the good operators in this industry are constantly excluded, maligned and publicly defamed without any chance for redress.”

“We hoped, perhaps naively, that the recent Standard revision would give us a chance to be more involved in developing a workable Standard for our own industry. After all, the more we have to fight just to stay in business, the less time we have to ensure that best practice is maintained.”

“It breaches the rules of fairness to use our industry as a scapegoat for a public health issue that is in no way restricted to the provision of our services. It’s an absolute case of strong-arming the little guy.” Mrs Brown adds, “INTANZ feels that it is prudent to keep the doors of communication open, and we remain keen to work with these interested parties if and when they can accept that indoor tanning operators play the biggest part in the operation and supervision of the indoor tanning game.”

ENDS

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