It shouldn’t be a burning issue for children
Mention the word suntan you get imaged of bronzed men and women on a beach somewhere in LA or Spain as the days of summer roll on. What you do not expect to get to is 70% burns to your body.
Kelly Thompson , from Port Talbot, was taken in agony to a special burns unit after spending 16 minutes on a coin-operated sunbed. Apparently if she would have spent two minutes longer, she would have needed skin grafts to help undo the damaged caused. Oh and by the way, Kelly is 10 years old.
Please, please, please someone tell me not only why the Electrik Avenue salon in Port Talbot allowed a child to use one of their tanning beds; but also why did Kelly’s family allow her to use it. Who is putting these crazy ideas in her head to say, she should be concentrating on getting a sun tan at such a young age?
Kelly’s mother Sharron Hanaford said, “I want the salon closed down because I know other kids are going in there.” It still begs the question how can you even advocate your child even considering using one at such a young age.
I agree that there is a responsibility on the salon’s part and just having a sign, that says you have to be 16 or over to use the beds, is nowhere near good enough. These things have to be enforced.
Stories circulated in Ireland, in 2006 where children were using sunbeds in the lead up to their communion. Regardless of health, does it not sound incredibly tacky and stupid?
What kind of message does it send to your child? That the way you look will always be the most important thing? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Also in 20006, the EC’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP), stated that the use of sunbeds to achieve and maintain cosmetic tanning ‘is likely to increase the risk of malignant melanoma of the skin’.
Malignant melanoma is the least common yet most dangerous type of skin cancer, with almost 400 Irish people are diagnosed with it every year.
Does the message start to sink in yet? Probably not, but I hope that Kelly Thompson recovers fully and that this incident will start to wake people up to the dangers of just “trying to look good”.
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 and is filed under Thoughts & Questions, Views on News.
Responses are currently closed
ken c Says:
We see the Catholic church burying the abuse by the priests and nuns to the children put into their care over many years. Why has it taken the Catholic abuse committee 9 years to compile this report. This is a scandal of the highest order.
From the mid-1920s until the early 1970s thousands of Irish children officially in the care of the state were subjected to a double regime of sexual abuse and wageless slavery. Ireland’s notorious industrial schools and orphanages – all run by Catholic orders – were home to boys and girls who had been officially declared criminals by the courts.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:30 pm