Burn Cosmo! New Dermaterrorist Attack On Tanning

[Ezliving_Jim]

WBALTV.com


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• Video: Beauty Queen Tells Tale Of Skin Cancer

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Miss Maryland: I Got Skin Cancer From Tanning


POSTED: 3:56 pm EDT May 1, 2007
UPDATED: 7:43 pm EDT May 1, 2007

BALTIMORE -- The pursuit of beauty nearly cost Miss Maryland Brittany Lietz her life, and this month she told her story to Cosmopolitan magazine in hopes that other women will learn from her mistakes.


As a teen, Lietz said she was addicted to tanning.

When she was 17 years old, she spent much of her time leading up to her prom trying to get as brown as possible, she said.

"Because that's the way I thought I was going to look best and beautiful," Lietz said.

But the tanning came to a stop when a biopsy revealed that a small mole on her back was a deadly form of skin cancer. She was 20 years old.

"I was the healthiest person in the world, and found out I had a terminal illness," she said.

Lietz had 25 surgeries to remove cancerous lesions from her skin.

Currently, she's spreading her anti-tanning message to a national audience in Cosmopolitan by debunking sunscreen myths and trying to keep young women safe.

"A lot of people don't realize you need to wear a sunscreen with at least an SPF 30. A lot of women do not realize that the amount of SPF in their makeup is not enough protection and, of course, a lot of people still use a tanning bed," she said.

As for her own recovery, Lietz, who is in full remission, has surprised her doctors.

"I'm an active person. I dance, and so they think that being so active really controlled my immune system and made me fight back really hard," she said.

That strength is something she said she wants to pass on to other young women who are still dangerously chasing beauty.

"The biggest part of having an article in Cosmo is reaching that audience -- reaching young women and making them realize this can happen to them," she said.

Lietz' story is in the May issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and is currently on newsstands.



If you're interested in learning more about the prevention and diagnosis of skin cancer, go to the American Cancer Society's Web site for quizzes, symptoms and screening information.

Source

[Ezliving_Jim]

Email Cosmopolitan Editor in Chief Kate White

[Ezliving_Jim]

Perhaps the ITA could organize a National Bonfire Day for Cosmo. The electronic media would eat it up and there would be an opportunity to debunk the dermaterrorist's propaganda.