Cancer concerns have some mulling a ban on teen tanning

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Miss Florida Teen USA Kayla Collier was 15 when she first visited a tanning salon so the stage lights at a local pageant wouldn’t make her fair skin look ghostly white.

Later that year, her mother noticed what looked like a scab on her back. It turned out to be skin cancer.

And though she can’t definitively link the tanning to the cancer, Collier, now 18 and healthy, won’t be back under the bulbs. On Wednesday, her voice catching, she asked Sunshine State lawmakers to ban people under 16 from using tanning beds.

Florida is among 17 states, including Hawaii, considering laws this year that would restrict indoor tanning by minors. Proposals would ban teens from tanning salons or require them to get notes from parents or doctors.

After the Florida bill passed a Senate committee, Collier’s mother, Claire, who had signed the permission form that allowed her daughter to tan, said she hopes the full Legislature will approve it.

Persuading teens to stop tanning could be a hard sell.

According to one study released in 2002, a quarter of those ages 15 to 18 had used indoor tanning in the past year.