Eight reasons the U.S. Surgeon General should announce that UV tanning causes skin cancer

A July, 2014 Call to Action to Prevent Skin Cancer by acting Surgeon General Dr. Boris Lushniak points out that indoor tanning is “strongly associated with increased skin cancer risk,” but stops short of reporting that tanning causes cancer. A University of Colorado Cancer Center opinion published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine points out that UV tanning meets the same criteria as smoking as a cause of cancer and argues that announcing the causality could save lives.

“In 1964 when the Surgeon General finally reported that smoking causes lung cancer, awareness and policy followed. Smoking rates declined and lung cancer rates have too. It’s time for the Surgeon General to say the same thing about UV tanning,” says Robert P. Dellavalle, MD, PhD, MSPH, investigator at the CU Cancer Center, associate professor of dermatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and the study’s senior author.

For the rest of the story, go to University of Colorado Cancer Center.

For a video broadcast of this story, go to CBS News.