Where Is The Anti-Tanning Message Coming From?

We've all heard the endless criticism against indoor tanning for years, but have you ever wonder where the information was coming from? Who was so avidly funding the $35 billion dollar anti-UV campaign? Some of the answers may just surprise you...
Check out the excerpt below and read the full article at TheTanningTruth.com, one of the most well-reputed tanning information sites available.
"The cosmetic dermatology’s powerful fear-based marketing message, which drives millions of customers into their offices, has helped grow their businesses by 320%. And the existence of the indoor tanning industry is competitive to dermatology’s multibillion-dollar phototherapy industry. Consider, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology: In 1993, 873,000 phototherapy sessions were delivered in dermatology offices in the U.S. By 1998, sessions had fallen off 94 percent to just 53,000.

1. The cost of a single phototherapy session – which utilizes indoor tanning equipment in a dermatologist’s office – is nearly $100 per session, about 20 times more than an indoor tanning session. An estimated 1.5 million indoor tanning clients today successfully treat psoriasis in indoor tanning facilities.
2. If tanning salons were closed, the cosmetic dermatology industry would gain up to $5 billion in phototherapy sessions which would be charged to health insurance companies and the Medicare system. (According to dermatology's own reports, psoriasis patients average 35 sessions per year at an estimated average of $85 per session.)

The dermatology industry is in a hypocritical position when it comes to indoor tanning:

1. According to the phototherapy industry’s own practices, dermatologists use sunburning dosages of UV light for the clinical treatment of psoriasis, a non-life threatening disease. If any UV exposure were as dangerous as a recent statement from the AAD claims, then dermatologists would be guilty of violating their Hippocratic oath for using UV in burning dosages to treat purely cosmetic skin conditions.
2. Melanoma mortality is increasing in men over age 50, but dermatology is targeting its anti-sun campaign almost exclusively at women under age 50 – the group most likely to visit cosmetic dermatology practices for its services.
3. The American Academy of Dermatology and other skin-care groups get much of their marketing budget directly from the chemical sunscreen industry. The AAD receives millions for putting endorsement logos on chemical sunscreen products – a much-criticized "pay for play" program."