Davis Health Board to vote on tanning

The Davis County Board of Health could vote today to ban anyone younger than 18 from using a tanning bed in the county.

A proposed set of regulations is on the table for the nine-member board to discuss and decide. It's the first set of regulations — which include rules for sanitation, safety and the most divisive issue, age — for tanning salons in the county.

The board's committee that drafted the regulations originally only required parental consent for younger tanners.

"As the subcommittee and staff did more research into the effects on children . . . they became convinced that we shouldn't just restrict it to parental consent," said Lewis Garrett, director of the Davis County Health Department.

Over the past nine months the county health department has received public comment, which has shown that teens generally oppose the ban, Garrett said.

Professional organizations, like the World Health Organization, American Medical Association and the Academy of Dermatologists, support it, Garrett said.

People who have had melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer, are in favor of it. Most tanning salons are opposed to an all-out ban, though they would accept some regulation like parental consent for minors.

Garrett said there is a concern that if the ban passes today, teens with driver's licences will simply go to neighboring Weber County to get their tanning fix.

"When you start digging down into medical science and research, this is not a healthy thing to do," he said.

Twenty-one states hold the same belief and have statewide bans on tanning for minors, Garrett said. Eleven of those states require parental consent. Seven prohibit children under age 14, and Wisconsin prohibits children under 16 from tanning.

If the Davis health board bans tanning for minors, it will be the first in Utah to do so. Salt Lake and Utah counties have regulations barring minors from tanning without the informed consent of parents.

"We discourage it at any age," said Dr. Joseph Miner, director of the Utah County Health Department. "Any kind of ultraviolet exposure is cumulative. It builds up over a lifetime and is damaging to the skin."

Miner said Utah County has had its regulation on tanning establishments for at least the past five years. Most of its regulations focus on sanitation and safety in the salons.

That's what Davis County aims to do, as well.

According to the proposed regulations, tanning salons will be required to apply for an annual permit from the county health department, post warning signs about ultraviolet radiation at the entrance and near each tanning bed, and they must properly sanitize all equipment used by multiple people.

The board is expected to vote on the regulations today during its 7 a.m. meeting. But the board could send the proposal back to its staff for more information.

The board meets at 50 E. State in Farmington in a second-floor conference room.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com