Doctor: ‘What we do in a dermatology office is quite different’

Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, said Idaho Freedom Foundation lobbyist Wayne Hoffman’s contention that dermatologists would profit from banning minors from using tanning beds is “somewhat confusing at best, because the dermatologists make their living by examination and treatment of skin diseases, and this bill certainly would decrease the amount of skin disease and particularly the amount of significant skin cancer.”

Dermatologists do use phototherapy devices in their offices to treat certain skin conditions, Rusche said, but they’re different from commercial tanning beds. “There was concern that dermatologists with their phototherapy devices in their offices were competing with tanning beds, and that’s clearly not the truth,” Rusche said. Idaho has the nation’s highest rate of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer; more than a third of Idaho teen girls have used tanning beds, which sharply increase the risk of melanoma.

The House Health & Welfare Committee is now hearing a detailed explanation from a dermatologist, Dr. Lindsay D. Sewell, president of the Idaho Dermatology Society, on the phone, complete with slides, on the procedures and devices that dermatologists use in their offices for certain conditions including psoriasis and lymphoma, and for shining a type of light called a Wood’s Lamp on the skin to help pinpoint a melanoma so it can be removed in surgery. “What we do in a dermatology office, you can see, is quite different from what happens in tanning salons,” Sewell told the lawmakers; the doctors’ equipment filters out the main wavelength of ultraviolet light that tans, UVA, while that’s the focus in tanning salons.

H&W Chair Janice McGeachin, T-Idaho Falls, told the committee, “I thought this was important. When I saw the report (from Hoffman) it concerned me. … It caused me to pause. I was really curious to understand more,” including the concern “that there was a financial motivation for this bill. … What I was looking was to gain a better understanding of what was happening in the offices of dermatologists.”

She said, “I had a chance to visit with Dr. Sewell on the phone. … He did a good job of helping me understand in a clear way,” so she wanted to share that with the committee.

“We don’t have a financial conflict of interest in this bill,” Sewell told the committee. “We do a different thing. … We’re not out to make people brown.”