As part of the examination of the Health Bill, the Senate has just decided to ban UV tanning booths, against the advice of the government.
It is raining all over France on Wednesday. Some of you, lacking the sun, may take the opportunity to treat yourself to an artificial UV session. A practice threatened since the Senate banned tanning booths on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday.
“The harmful role of these cabins in the appearance of skin cancer is scientifically established by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (which classified it in the group of certain carcinogenic agents for humans), ”said Senator Jean-François Longeot (UDI-UC) in comments reported by Agence France Presse (AFP).
Dermatologists disappointed with current regulations
This measure will undoubtedly satisfy the National Union of Dermatologists-Venereologists (SNDV) which has been calling for such a ban for a long time, highlighting the health risks.
Exposure to artificial UV rays has in fact been recognized as one of the main causes of the sharp increase in skin cancer by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has advised against the use of tanning booths since 2003.
And in France, the number of melanomas – the most aggressive form of skin cancer – tripled between 1980 and 2005: 9,780 new cases and 1,620 deaths were counted by the networks of the National Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS) in 2011.
According to an estimate published in 2012 in the Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin (BEH), tanning lamps are therefore responsible, in France, for 19 to 76 annual deaths from cutaneous melanoma.
Marisol Touraine wants to ban them to minors
This ban, however, has little chance of being confirmed when the text is returned to the National Assembly, on the left, since the Senate, on the right, had already requested it on July 22 before the Committee on Social Affairs. The proposal had been rejected.
On the occasion of the last National Day for the Prevention and Screening of Skin Cancer, the Minister of Health had further underlined that the Health Bill already contained ” a series of measures to toughen the rules ”. These provide in particular for enhanced information in tanning centers on the risks associated with the use of UV booths. And their access will now be prohibited to minors, as will their promotion and sale to individuals. As for the professionals, the only authorized ones, they will have to receive compulsory training before any marketing.
.
