Vitiligo patients often use tanning beds to complement topical psoralen therapy. An interesting controversy has erupted since the Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), run by the World Health Organization made and incriminating assertion on July 29, 2009, that UV tanning beds are “carcinogenic to humans.” It may be of note that tanning beds were previously classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

The evidence linking indoor tanning to one of the deadliest skin cancers melanoma was declared as “sufficient and compelling. Vincent Cogliano, PhD the spokesman of IARC referred to the dramatic rise in melanoma in young ladies, and said that there was a “abundance of evidence” that tanning beds had played a role in this rise.

IARC people have also incriminated UVA and UVB, and said that a review of the relevant studies has found that ultraviolet A (UVA), ultraviolet B (UVB) and ultraviolet C (UVC) radiation all cause cancer in animal models. They have classified UVA light as a class I carcinogen and advise against its use.”

The Tanning Industry has challenged these views and them to be “irresponsible assertions without providing any concrete link between indoor tanning and melanoma.”