Fantastic Article

[Michelle N]

Kpowr,
I will let you know what I decide to do with it. I really like the idea of putting it in my front window so that people going into the stores around me can see. I also like to have a couple for my shelf, bathroom wall, reception area also.

[eileen]

You can grab this for your Facebook profile picture or anywhere else you can think of to share it.

[solarmeter®]

What does this mean for us? Now that it is documented, can we say this?

I don't know - other than you can reference the study... as you can any other of many D3 papers. Ask the ITA or Smart Tan. You could also email W. Grant and request a PDF of the entire paper.

Beyond that - the long arm of the FTC is still out there... although they are supposed to focus on false not true advertising.

Further beyond that - even though the paper shows "sunbed" UV does make D3 (as did a couple of Holick's over the years)... connecting the sunbed UV produced D3 to "health claims" is also not allowed - by the FDA I think.

Go figure.

[Don]

The statement "Fact: Sunbeds produce Vitamin D" can be considered to be a "medical claim" if FDA/FTC wants to pursue it.

Tony said "If you are going to mess with the FDA (and believe me, I am all for that), you're going to have to be 100% accurate."

He is absolutely right and I hope everyone pays attention to what he said.

When he said "Sunbeds do not produce Vitamin D. Sunbeds emit UV radiation, and your body produces Vitamin D." he is right but I prefer to say that "sunbeds emit vitamin D-effective photons" because (a) it is correct, and, (b) it is more "meaningful" to clients.

You can also go a little bit farther and say "this sunbed emits a dose of XX mW/m^2 of vitamin D-effective photons during the maximum session time allowed by FDA." This statement is nothing more than a "verifiable fact" and is not in any way a medical claim.

Why is this discussion important? Because the "climate" in Washington, DC is decidedly favorable to the dermatologists pushing for, and getting, onerous regulations enacted at the federal level. They are now "pushing hard" for either (1) adoption of the EU 0.3 W/m^2 maximum allowable irradiance standard (their first choice), or, (2) mandating that the current "recommended" exposure schedule be used (their "fall back" position).

I believe that the industry "focus" on vitamin D (as shown by the recent Nashville meeting) can (and, IMHO, will) end up "biting us in the butt" and be used against us. We should use (as Tony said) only statements that are scientifically accurate. As everyone knows, things are "tough" right now but if everyone starts making vitamin D "claims" things can (and will) get much, much worse.

[solarmeter®]

The above statement should include the word approximately before mW/m² unless you have a $40K spectralradiometer with CIE DAS convolution software... like Don has under his bed.

Using the D3 meter "utility" you can see the mW/m² effective photons in the upper right sidebar line 2:



In this example 250 mW/m² is same as 0.25 W/m² or 0.025 mW/cm² Eeff as a proxy for Deff. The reason the number is so "tiny" is because this is not "broadband" UVB or UVA like you see on a 6.0 or 5.0 meter... rather it is weighted by the action spectrum which only "counts" 298nm and below as full strength.

Also - this example is for a UV Index of 10.0... wheras sunbeds would typically be 3-4 times stronger.

The other reason to use "approximately" is that handheld meters have a ±10% tolerance statement on the back label... and because the meter action spectrum response does not exactly match the CIE D3 version.

[solarmeter®]

Admin: This thread should probably be moved to the Industry Pro's Only forum.

[dcjjp1]

Agreed... Kpower changed some wording and I believe it looks great and has no medical claims for the FTC to get their undies in a bunch.

[Ben Around]

I just added the poster to both mysapce and facebook as profile picture. I am going to put them in all my salons.

[agk453]

It's going on a banner to hang outside the salon this weekend. They guy that printed it loved it - nothing he could have improved on he says. Sometimes simplicity sends the best message. Hats off to kpower and the others to come up with something like this. Between this banner, the SmartTan Vitamin D stuff and whatever else I can find, my whole storefront is now a Vitamin D ad.

[bobalou]

if everyone here would write the doctor oz show, maybe we could get some
priceless "exposure" from a trusted source. he sent an audience member to the carribean to get some sun, instead of recommending a tanning salon.
each one should include dr. grant's findings re:vit d levels as a result of sunlamp exposure.

[bettybookends]

I just ran the poster by Smart Tan Canada's Steve Gilroy. His only concern was that the poster should specify UVB instead of UV.

[SALON EUFORIA]

Has anyone sent out any articles either as a mailing or email to clients about countering the "bad tanning" publicity? I've read quotes and so forth but was wanting to send something professional but concise to my clients. Would love to even hang something in each of my tanning rooms. Any suggestions or websites where I can download these articles?

[agk453]

I use the tanningtruth news articles published on the smarttan site to hang in the rooms. I swap them around every couple of weeks so that the regulars see something different and are likely to pay more attention.