Calling them a “cancer risk,” Obama’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed that minors be banned from being allowed to use tanning beds and other sunlamp devices.
Announcing the proposal on Friday, acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Ostroff said, “Today’s action is intended to help protect young people from a known and preventable cause of skin cancer and other harms. Individuals under 18 are at greatest risk of the adverse health consequences of indoor tanning.”
That is not the only restriction the FDA wants on UV light products. The agency also proposed that anyone over 18 be forced to sign a waiver acknowledging the “dangers” tanning devices pose before being allowed to use them.
“Indoor tanning is a known contributor to skin cancer, including melanoma (its most deadly form), and other skin damage,” the FDA notes on its webpage.
“The FDA understands that some adults may decide to continue to use sunlamp products,” Ostroff continued. “These proposed rules are meant to help adults make their decisions based on truthful information, and to ensure manufacturers and tanning facilities take additional steps to improve the safety of these devices.”
A raft of other rules were also included in the proposal. New warning labels on machines were proposed as was the mandate of a “panic button” or a shut off switch being added inside every unit, along with the outlawing of modifications to units, and other things.
As HealthDay News reports, “1.6 million Americans under the age of 18 indoor tan each year, according to 2013 federal government data.”
The proposals are just part of the onslaught of regulations that have poured from Obama’s administration.
By June of this year Obama had already gone over the 500 mark in major regulatory changes. By comparison, George W. Bush–no slouch in issuing new regulations, himself–issued less than 500 regulations during his whole presidency. Yet only 6-1/2 years in, Obama has easily gone over 500.
The combined cost of Obama’s major regulations from 2009 to present is a well over $625 billion.
By the estimates of the American Action Forum, Obama is on track to approve a whopping 644 major regulations at a cost to the American people of some $750 billion in long-term costs.
This avalanche of regulations is a far cry from the regulatory cuts that Obama promised as recently as 2011.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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