DeLauro Fights for Tanning Bed Reclassification

Washington, DC— Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) today gave the following remarks at the Melanoma Research Foundation Briefing to urge the FDA to re-classify tanning beds in order to better inform the public about the health threat they pose.

Thank you, Tim, for that kind introduction. And thank you for inviting me to speak today.

Thanks also to Tim, and the entire Melanoma Research Foundation for all of their hard work and advocacy on this issue. In promoting crucial research and pushing for federal legislation to combat the spread of melanomas, you are quite literally working to save lives. And thank you also to my good friends Ed Long and David Fisher, whom I believe is speaking today, for their continued push on this issue.

I am sure everyone in this room today knows the troubling statistics – Each day, approximately 3,000 people are diagnosed with skin cancer in America, and 31 people, more than one an hour, die from it. This means over 1 million new cases, and 11,600 deaths, each year.

Melanomas only account for 5% of these numbers, but they are the most deadly form of skin cancer – 2009 saw over 68,000 new cases and over 8600 deaths due to melanoma, and new studies suggest that the survivors are in greater danger of redeveloping the disease.

These statistics are sobering to anyone. And I find them particularly frustrating as a survivor of ovarian cancer, because this is one of the few cancers for which a preventative option truly exists. It is not some deep dark secret known only by health experts. We can start by just following some of the oldest advice in the book – when you spend the day outdoors, wear sunscreen.

But of course, reducing exposure to ultraviolet rays not only means avoiding too much sun, but also avoiding the overuse – or even the use, in my opinion – of indoor tanning devices.

There is no doubt that tanning devices pose a considerable health threat to the American public, and especially to the millions of young women and adolescent girls who use them on a regular basis. In fact, melanoma rates for young women ages 15-30 have tripled over the past thirty-five years, and it is now the second-most common cancer in U.S. women ages 20-29.

Last July, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer-research component of the World Health Organization, added tanning beds and sunlamps to its ‘Group One' list of human cancer-causing agents, concluding that all types of ultraviolet light used in tanning beds is as carcinogenic as asbestos, cigarettes, radium, and arsenic. WHO also found that the risk of melanoma – the most deadly form of skin cancer – increases by 75 percent when people start using tanning beds before age 30.

And yet, here in America, the Food and Drug Administration still classifies indoor tanning devices as class I medical devices, which means these dangerous devices are considered as innocuous as tongue depressors and bandages. This classification gives consumers false assurance about the safety of these machines. There is a good reason these tanning beds are shaped like coffins – they, like cigarettes and asbestos, are basically carcinogen-delivering devices.

As you know, an FDA Advisory Committee will be holding a hearing tomorrow to examine recent scientific findings on tanning beds, with an eye to this current classification and possible regulatory controls over these dangerous devices. I hope the committee will listen to experts like those of the Melanoma Research Foundation and the Skin Cancer Foundation, and pave the way for following in the footsteps of WHO on this issue. We must change the classification of these tanning beds, so that the severity of the health threat they pose is better conveyed to women and families.

In addition, I encourage FDA to revise the warning labels so that they are easier for people to read and understand the risks. We just passed comprehensive health care legislation this week because we want to help Americans live longer, happier lives. This same commitment to the public health should also animate our efforts here. I believe it is critical that we find ways to encourage young women and adolescent girls to limit their use of these machines. And that, along with the increasingly clear negative consequences of tanning bed usage, is why we included a 10% tax on indoor tanning services in the legislation.

In any case, hopefully the hearing tomorrow will encourage FDA to move in the right direction regarding classification of these machines. But, either way, I strongly support the Tanning Bed Cancer Control Act put forward by my colleague Rep. Maloney, and which I will let her speak about.

In the meantime, thank you all for coming and working so hard to get the word out about melanomas. I hope today's briefing goes well, and that you get the message to the FDA! Thank you.