The latest attack on indoor tanning
Comes from the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS (AAP) in their report – “Ultraviolet Radiation: A Hazard to Children and Adolescents” in March 2011 issue of “PEDIATRICS”, the official journal of the AAP.
The report is carefully prepared with 29 pages and 230 references to other publications.
The problem is, however, that it already from start takes the standpoint that Ultraviolet light is a carcinogen in accordance with the first reference, an IARC-report from 1997. Even the words – “UltraViolet Radiation”, implies that this is about something dangerous.
An unfair play
Reading the report makes me feel like watching a “tug-of-war” game.
In one end of the rope are the representatives for logic, common sense and the ancient wisdom (re-confirmed by latest science) that sunlight is the beneficial source of all life on earth.
At the other end are the lobbyists for the relatively new, commercially invented, fear of sun-exposure.
Unfortunately, for children’s health, the tug-teams are far from equal and the game is rigged.
How good parents became bad parents
If you are old enough, you probably remember the time when a sunny day was a happy day. Children could play outside, in the sunshine, with as little clothes on as possible. It was a time when doctors and other authorities encouraged parents to let children spend as much time as possible in the sun (at least in most parts of Europe and North America).
Today, parents are considered negligent if they allow children go outside at all a sunny day without a lot of clothes and without covering them with sun-screen lotion (“20-30 minutes before and re-applying every two hours”).
Why are we not dead yet?
Applying the statistics from today’s fear-mongers to my generation, most of us should have been victims of skin-cancer by now.
What has changed? It is the same sun. Why is it so much more dangerous now than 40-50 years ago? Initially, the sun-scare campaign tried to use a thinning UV-protective ozone-layer as an argument. However, when regular measurements of the ozone-layer were established, it turned out to have natural fluctuations without any predictable influence on the amount of UV-light reaching the earth.
In fact nothing has changed except the perception of sunlight. Unscrupulous indoctrination by a massive sun-scare campaign for increased sales of sun-protection lotions is responsible for this change in perception.
Two inventions affecting Vitamin D production in human skin.
During the last 30 years, two inventions were developed that affect the human body’s possibility to make the life-giving Vitamin D.
One invention, the sun-lamp, gives us the chance to access UV-light when the sun not is available. This “permanent” access to UVB allows Vitamin D to be created in the way nature intended, whenever and wherever we want and need it.
The other invention, chemical sun-screen lotions, destroys the fine-tuned relationship between the UV-light from the sun and the human body. This relationship was developed during millions of years in order to provide us with healthy and safe levels of vitamin D.
Modern research and science have confirmed the ancient wisdom that sunlight in general and UVB especially, is needed for preventing ill health. Despite this, the usage of sun-lamps is considered life-threatening. Its developers, supporters and users, are persecuted like heretics during the Inquisition.
Unlike the sun-lamp, chemical sun-screen lotions are supported by all levels of society. Media, authorities (both health- and political-) are competing who can promote them most. That they in the process also rob the body of its natural way to produce Vitamin D, seems to be of minor concern for the lobbyists.
Money in control but fail to cure.
The multi-billion dollar sales of sun-protection cosmetics provides more than enough profit to support and manage media, research and lobbying organizations (like AAP) to run the errands of the manufacturers of such cosmetics. Unfortunately they can’t show any positive result of their efforts. Even though the sales of sun-protection lotions, just like the incidences of skin-cancers, have increased steeply, the mortality has hardly changed at all during the last 30 years.
Instead of being heralded as a solution to a health-problem, sun-beds are compared to tobacco and alcohol. According to the sun-protection lobbyists, a tanning-studio is no better than an opium den and people frequenting tanning-salons, especially teenagers, run the risk of “addiction to tanning”.
Poor Mother Sun. For millions of years, she has been the source of life on earth and the symbol of health. Now, she is compared to lethal drugs and sees her worshippers witch-hunted for their “addiction” and devotion to her.
Age-limit for buying hamburgers?
Even if something is good, too much can make it bad and unhealthy. Even so, it does not mean that all things that can be abused should be forbidden. In that case, teenagers’ access to food should also be restricted. Because, I suppose, obesity among teenagers is a much more life-threatening problem than too much tan? 18-years limit for McDonalds – how does that sound?
How can they sleep well at night?
How long can the people involved in this brainwash of society continue to extend their health-harming messages? Where are their consciences? Are they all without common sense and unaffected by old wisdom re-assured by modern research.
Representatives for the indoor tanning industry are doing what they can educate people about the reality of the sun-scare campaign and the benefits of regular and moderate UV-exposure without burning.
Their resources are, however, infinitely smaller than their opponents and by far not enough for their message to penetrate the washed brains of politicians and the majority of the population.
Get a fuller picture in the report “30 years of Sun-Scare”.
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