Melanoma Rates On the Rise Among Young Adults: Study

Chronically ill patients are followed routinely and as needed by their primary care physicians. Due to this repoire, the physician will direct admit a patient to the appropriate unit instead of the patient having to be admitted through ER, which can actually be a long, uncomfortable and expensive tribulation.

Mary Lou Hayes of IN 5:54AM April 07, 2012

The single county that Mayo Clinic dermatology researchers used to produce this study of melanoma incidence has 15 times more dermatologists per capita than the rest of the country (68 in a county of 144,000 residents), a confounding stat that Mayo failed to disclose and which explains why the paper suggested an increase that isn't in the national data.

Mayo dermatology researchers told the media in an embargoed press conference last week that data from one single Minnesota County (Olmsted) were somehow more accurate than the National Cancer Institute's national cancer registry and misled the media by saying that melanoma is increasing "especially" in young women and that "the incidence of melanoma has escalated and young women are the hardest hit."

Check the National Cancer Institute's national registry yourself. (http://seer.cancer.gov) Melanoma is much more common in men than in women and is increasing in men. Melanoma mortality has decreased in women since the mid-1980s and is actually less than 2 per 100,000.

The Mayo report is more about politics than it is about science. Melanoma is more common in INDOOR workers than it is in OUTDOOR workers who get 4-10 times more UV exposure. How could that be possible if UV exposure was the factor?

If Mayo thinks sunbeds are so dangerous, why does it still use them at $100 a session to treat cosmetic skin diseases?

When the public figured out that indoor tanning beds were a cheaper way to self-treat psoriasis than the co-pay for a $100 a session "phototherapy" visit in the same equipment in a dermatologist's office, that's when dermatology started attacking indoor tanning salons.

How else can you explain that fact that dermatology continues to defend its own usage of sunbeds as "safe" (it intentionally induces sunburns and uses sunbeds in combination with topical drugs that make patients burn) while attacking indoor tanning, which doesn't intentionally burn clients?

If dermatology were true to its word about sunbeds, it would immediately suspend its own usage of sunbeds. But it won't. The legislation derms introduce to limit teen access to tanning salons ALWAYS protects its own ability to intentionally sunburn teens in dermatology offices using the same sunbeds at 20 times the price, billed to insurance companies.

Joseph Levy of CO 3:03AM April 02, 2012