12:00a.m. 6th October 2008

| Tamara McLean of AAP

Tanning beds have been blamed for the death of 43 Australians a year through melanoma alone, with Queensland leading the way in reported skin cancer cases.

Researchers in Brisbane and Sydney have made a case for tough federal government regulations to either ban or sharply limit access to tanning solariums.

Both proposals go further than regulations currently being unveiled state by state in the wake of the well-publicised plight of Melbourne woman Claire Oliver, who died of melanoma in September last year.

A team at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research has used a British mathematical model to estimate sunbeds are responsible for 281 cases of melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer, each year, including 121 cases in Queensland, 75 in NSW and 51 in Victoria. Overall, an estimated 43 of these patients die.

About 2500 new cases of other skin cancers could also be attributed to solarium use.

“The annual cost to the health system – predominantly Medicare Australia – for these avoidable skin cancer cases and deaths is about $3 million,” Dr Louisa Gordon wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia. “By successfully enforcing solarium regulations that ban use by people under 18 or with fair skin, favourable health and cost benefits could be expected.”

Professor Simon Chapman, from the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, said while federal regulation was one option, a total ban, as requested by Ms Oliver, was preferred.

It was a “missed opportunity” that this had not occurred during her campaign against solariums.

“Unlike sun exposure, solaria are an entirely tractable factor contributing to melanoma,” he wrote in the same journal. “Their demise would almost certainly be applauded by many in the community and nearly everyone in cancer control.”

The review found the number of solarium-related businesses had increased fourfold in most Australian cities and sixfold in Melbourne since 1992.

Tests by scientists at Australia’s nuclear safety agency showed that most beds had UV radiation intensity three times stronger than the midday summer sun in Brisbane.

Attempts to contact Sunshine Coast tanning salons for comment were unsuccessful.— AAP