By Adriana Christianson

Cancer survivor urges Sask. to pursue teen-tanning bans

Mar 26, 2015 | 4:23 PM

The Alberta government introduced the Skin Cancer Prevention Act this week leaving Saskatchewan as the only province without a law addressing the use of tanning beds for people under 18.

Cancer agencies have been calling for a ban on youth indoor tanning for years. The World Health Organization found that using tanning beds before the age of 35 increases the risk of melanoma by 75 per cent.

“A ban on indoor tanning for minors would keep people from making the same mistake I did,” said Sarah Merrill, who was diagnosed with skin cancer at the age of 19.

She started using indoor tanning beds when she was 15 growing up in North Battleford. The first time she went it was to get a ‘base tan’ for a trip to Mexico. Throughout high school she continued tanning indoors to get a ‘glow’ when she was a grad escort and for her own graduation.

“All of my friends were using tanning salons and the girls who graduated before me were using tanning salons,” Merrill said.

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Looking back, the 24-year-old can vividly remember reading an article in a doctor’s office about a girl who got skin cancer after using tanning beds. But as she walked away, she never really thought it could happen to her. 

When Merrill was in Grade 12, she noticed that a mole on her knee was growing.  

“It started to change. It got bigger and up to the time I got it removed, it ended up looking like a pencil eraser. It was raised, it was pink and if you knicked it, it would bleed,” she said.

She had the mole removed, still assuming it was nothing.

“As I was sitting in a class in university, I received a call saying I had stage three invasive malignant melanoma,” Merrill explained. “Later I had a baseball-sized lump of flesh removed from my knee.”

Now 24 and cancer-free, she is an advocate for the Cancer Society. She’s calling on the government to pay attention to the risks of indoor tanning and to catch up with the rest of Canada on a law to ban it. She says health warnings are not enough to stop teenagers from tanning indoors because young people feel invincible.

This week, Premier Brad Wall briefly responded to a question about whether the Saskatchewan government would consider a ban on indoor tanning for minors. He said the government is still reviewing the options like requiring parental consent like the law in Manitoba.

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