Sun sets on ultraviolet tanning beds…

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

COMMERCIAL tanning beds will be banned in NSW under radical new laws to be announced by the government today.

NSW will be the only place in the world besides Brazil to institute a total ban on ultraviolet solariums tanning units when the laws come into place from December 31, 2014, and cancer groups hope other states and countries will follow.

The ban is likely to save lives but could put some NSW solariums – which pay about $30,000 for new tanning beds – out of business.

The Environment Ministe, Robyn Parker, chose World Cancer Day to make her announcement, saying sun beds were carcinogenic and the International Agency for Research on Cancer had placed them in the same category of risk as asbestos. “Sadly, Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world and this ban is long overdue,” she said.

There are about 100 businesses with 254 commercial tanning units registered in NSW, and about 10 per cent offer UV tanning exclusively. That group would be offered help through the Department of Trade and Investment’s business advisory services, Ms Parker said.

Jay Allen, a melanoma survivor who led the campaign for the ban, said he was “over the moon”.

“This is for all the people who have lost their life to melanoma, all the people living with melanoma,” he said. “It’s going to save many, many lives.”

A professor of public health at the University of Sydney, Simon Chapman, said: “Solaria are cancer incubators and we have known that for a good while”. He said Mr Allen’s campaign was one of the best examples of consumer advocacy he had seen.

The chief executive of the Cancer Council Australia, Ian Olver, said he hoped other states would follow. “It starts with one state that is brave enough to do it and it usually flows on,” he said.

He said governments paid for cancers caused by sunbeds so they had a right to ban them.

A study by the University of Sydney estimated the ban would prevent about 120 melanomas from developing and save about 10 lives.

The Greens have pushed for a ban on sunbeds and Frank Sartor, as environment minister in the former Labor government, announced a partial ban. But days before the state election, Labor backed down on its stance.

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