Medical establishment continues ridiculous propaganda campaign against UV rays, likens tanning beds to 'coffins'

Tuesday, April 16, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: tanning beds, skin cancer, melanoma

(NaturalNews) The medical misinformation mafia is at it again, this time with regards to ultraviolet (UV) rays and their effect on human health. Reports are now surfacing from all the usual suspects in the mainstream media claiming that exposure to UV rays, and particularly those emitted from tanning beds, is killing people -- and one popular mainstream "health" magazine has even hyperbolically compared tanning beds to coffins.

Why all the sudden commotion and paranoia about this widely misunderstood subject? A cohort of conventional oncologists is convinced that tanning beds are responsible for the eightfold rise in cases of melanoma that has occurred since 1970, so it is now on a mission to get as many people as possible to stop tanning. And the primary way this group appears to be doing this is by intensifying a campaign of fear and panic it initiated many years ago about the alleged dangers of tanning.

According to a recent study conducted by Dr. Jerry Brewer, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic, the overall rate of melanoma, a potentially-deadly type of skin cancer, has risen dramatically over the past few decades, particularly among young women. And because young women are the most likely demographic to engage in indoor tanning, some experts have jumped to the conclusion that exposure to UV rays must automatically be responsible.

Tanning beds actually protect against melanoma

But are tanning beds really responsible for this rise in melanoma? Not really, especially when considering the findings of a 2007 study published in the journal Cell. As we reported back around the time of the study's publishing, researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass., basically discovered that when skin is exposed to UV radiation from sunlight or tanning bed bulbs, it produces a protein called p53 that actually protects against melanoma (https://www.naturalnews.com/021822_skin_cancer_medical_myths.html).

This same group of researchers also discovered during an earlier study that, contrary to popular opinion, skin that becomes tan as a result of UVB exposure is not actually damaged. Many conventional doctors and their mainstream media parrots continue to falsely claim that tan skin is unhealthy and indicative of damage, while actual scientific research has revealed that tan skin is healthy skin that has been naturally darkened by the production of melanin.

"The number one risk factor for melanoma is an inability to tan," said Dr. David E. Fisher, M.D., Ph.D., author of the Cell study and director of the Melanoma Program at Dana-Farber. "People who tan easily or have dark pigmentation are far less likely to develop the disease" (http://www.childrenshospital.org).

People with high antioxidant intake who prime their skin for sunlight exposure have decreased cancer risk

One thing the anti-UV crowd always fails to mention, perhaps intentionally, is the fact that human skin needs regular sunlight exposure in order to produce adequate levels of vitamin D. Millions of Americans are grossly deficient in vitamin D, which is responsible for causing all sorts of deadly conditions such as diabetes, renal failure, heart disease, and, ironically, cancers of all kinds (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/).

Sure, you can do quite a bit of damage to your skin if you allow too much exposure to natural sunlight or use tanning beds too much. But even this type of damage, usually in the form of a bad sunburn, is caused by a lack of nutrients, and particularly antioxidants such as astaxanthin that have been proven to provide natural protection against sunlight damage (https://www.naturalnews.com/023177_astaxanthin_antioxidants.html).

To learn more about how indoor tanning can play an important role in keeping your vitamin D levels high and your health in tip-top shape when natural sunlight exposure is limited, visit:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/?o=3427

Sources for this article include:

http://healthyliving.msn.com/diseases/cancer/skin-cancer-kills

http://www.childrenshospital.org

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/

https://www.naturalnews.com/023177_astaxanthin_antioxidants.html