A SPIRITED RADIO debate last week left many listeners befuddled as a doctor and the chair of the Sunbed Association contradicted each other on medical research.

Professor Anne-Marie Tobin, a consultant dermatologist and the HSE’s clinical lead in dermatology, was speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on 27 May in favour of a total ban on sunbeds, which she said contributed to skin cancer and ageing.

However, against a coalition of cancer charities, medical organisations and advocacy groups who have all come out in favour of a ban on sunbeds, which they said were causing rising melanoma rates in Ireland, head of the Sunbed Association Gary Lipman defended their use.

The Sunbed Association is an indoor tanning lobby group for the UK and Ireland.

Lipman claimed that the research against sunbeds was old, arguing that newer studies indicated that their use had potential benefits.

The Sunbed Association is currently the subject of controversy in the UK after it claimed that tanned skin can protect people against sunburn, a suggestion that was strongly criticised by health authorities there.

However, this claim did not appear during the 11-minute RTÉ debate, which saw numerous studies and statistics cited — most of which were hotly contested by opposing sides — and which there was no time to describe in any detail.

The arguments also included exchanges over whether Australian schemes for the government to buy-back sunbeds worked and the potential carcinogenic qualities of HRT. But central within the debate loomed a simple question: what does the scientific research say about the harms of sunbeds?

Radio chatter

When asked directly whether sunbeds increased the risk of skin cancer and deaths, Lipman said they don’t. “The stats being used are historic and outdated,” he claimed — misleadingly, as we will see.

He later went on to say that only overexposure to ultraviolet rays caused problems. “If used responsibly — that’s the key — there is no harmful effect”, he said.

Tobin, of the HSE, was adamant that research shows that the harms caused by sunbeds are real. “The link between sunbeds and skin cancer is extremely strong. And the data isn’t old,” she said.

“Not only is there an association with sunbed use, but there’s what’s known as a dose response and that really confirms the connection. What that means is the more you use them, the higher the risk.”

Lipman responded: “The analysis she is talking about is over 20 years old and is way before the standards that we have today.”

“The data is not old.” Tobin countered. “The research goes back to 2019. It’s not old data.”

Academic papers

In response to The Journal’s queries about the research he and Tobin alluded to, Lipman said: “The research referred to is from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published in 2006.

“The correct title for the paper is ‘Exposure To Artificial UV Radiation And Skin Cancer’. The point to note is that this is a meta-analysis that measured high intensity UV devices used in hospitals and medical settings,” Lipman said, “not a report on professional sunbeds, as is wrongly, possibly maliciously, reported.”

There is indeed a 2006 paper by a World Health Organisation group, the IARC.

Part of the executive summary of that report says that “there was a prominent and consistent increase in risk for melanoma in people who first used indoor tanning facilities in their twenties or teen years”.

“Limited data suggest that the risk of squamous cell carcinoma is similarly increased after first use as a teenager,” it added.

“Artificial tanning confers little if any protection against solar damage to the skin, nor does use of indoor tanning facilities grant protection against vitamin D deficiency.

“Data also suggest detrimental effects from use of indoor tanning facilities on the skin’s immune response and possibly on the eyes (ocular melanoma).”

Despite Lipman’s claims, the report very much concerns sunbeds — in the report’s 64 pages, the term “sunbed” is found 96 times.

The report concludes that evidence around “the association of the use of indoor tanning equipment with melanoma risk” shows that “there is convincing evidence to support a causal relationship, particularly with exposure before the age of 35 years”.

However, Lipman was correct that the report is now 20 years old. Does this mean that all the data is old? No.

That report was not what Tobin was referring to.

Responding to inquiries, Tobin referred The Journal to a paper called ‘Sunbeds and melanoma risk: time to close the debate’.

It was published in a medical journal, Current Opinion in Oncology, in 2019 and reviewed “recently published evidence” to find “the real impact of sunbed use on melanoma risk”.

And while one paper from the IARC was, in turn, cited in that report, it was not the 2006 paper, but rather a 2012 publication.

The 2019 report that Tobin had been referring to on the radio cited multiple other papers from 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Tobin also shared with The Journal another study, published in 2025, called ‘Molecular effects of indoor tanning’. That study looked at biopsies of melanoma sites on young patients to show how their DNA had changed.

That paper concluded that “tanning bed radiation induces melanoma” by creating more and more varied mutations in the skin cells that produce melanin.

New research

However, this was not the only research mentioned on the Morning Ireland segment.

“The emerging data is actually much more positive about sunshine and sunbeds in particular,” Lipman said. “The University of Edinburgh has recently published two studies talking about the advantages of ultraviolet and sunbeds.”

In response to inquiries from The Journal, Lipman outlined the research he was referring to.

“Dermatologist Dr Richard Weller champions a fundamental shift in how medicine and public health campaigns view ultraviolet (UV) radiation,” he wrote.

“His core stance is that the systemic health benefits of habitual UV exposure outweigh its risks, particularly in high-latitude, low-sunlight environments like the UK and Sweden.”

Lipman also specified the two papers he was referring to. However, one of these papers was a preprint, meaning it has not passed the peer review process and, unlike what he had said on the radio, it has not been published.

Both the published and unpublished papers conclude that the benefits from lifestyles that see sun exposure more than outweigh any risks caused by the sun.

However, in the preprint paper, sunbeds are only captured incidentally through a score that tries to account for all UV exposure, including time spent outdoors. 

“The representative from the Sunbed Association referenced work by Richard Weller in Edinburgh, which suggested that sun avoidance increased cardiovascular risk,” Tobin said in an email, “but it had nothing to do with sunbeds! It is simply that we all should be outdoors without burning our skin!”

However, the other (published and peer-reviewed) paper co-authored by Weller does have specific sections on sunbeds.

Specifically, it discusses surveys on the use of solar lamps or “solariums” — a term that is often used to refer to sunbeds, though confusingly can also be used to describe rooms that let in a lot of light, such as conservatories. 

In an email, Weller confirmed that the term referred to sunbeds in the study.

This paper, published in 2024, found that people who received less UV light had a higher risk of mortality. The study broke this down both in terms of where in the UK people lived (and therefore roughly how much sunlight they received), or whether they used a solarium one or more times a year. 

The study noted that it only looked at observational data, and that the cause of the detected benefits to solarium users may actually be “other sun-seeking behaviours” such as “participating in more outdoor hobbies”.

“This doesn’t prove that sunbeds make you live longer,” Weller told The Journal. “To prove that you would have to ideally do a trial of sunbeds vs no sunbeds, although practically this would be very hard to do.”

Nevertheless, the study does suggest that “the benefits of UV exposure on mortality outweigh the risks in low sunlight environments”, noting that this contradicts current public health messaging. 

“We used sunbed use as a behavioural measure of sunlight exposure alongside an independent geographical measure,” Weller explained. 

“We show that for a British (and I suspect Irish — you are like the Scots without the sunshine) population the benefits of sunshine vastly outweigh the hazards.”

Weller said he was against the proposed ban on sunbeds in Ireland, explaining his study “doesn’t prove that sunbeds are good for you, but it shows that overall they are not bad for you”.

It should be noted that this 2024 University of Edinburgh study is just one of scores looking at the health effects of UV rays. And while its findings are surprising, it has so far not budged the general consensus in the scientific community.

For example, the research would later be cited in another UK paper, called ‘The effects of sunlight exposure on mortality: a systematic review of epidemiological studies’. 

This paper looked at 73 studies, finding that “the evidence was mixed”, and that their review of all these studies does “not provide a strong rationale for changes to sun protection guidance”.

Verdict

There is a significant amount of research on the effects of sunbeds and sunlight on human health. This article only looks at research in regard to claims made on a debate aired on RTÉ Radio 1. 

The claim that research showing a link between sunbed use and skin cancer is more than 20 years old is FALSE.

As per our reader’s guide, this means the claim is inaccurate.

Although 20 years ago a review of the research did indicate sunbeds were harmful, there have been plenty of studies with similar conclusions published since.

The claim that The University of Edinburgh has recently published two studies talking about the advantages of ultraviolet and sunbeds is a MIXTURE of truth and falsehood. One of the studies Lipman mentioned has not passed peer review or been published, nor does it look at the effect of sunbeds directly.

However, the paper that was published does talk about potential benefits of UV light, including through the use of “solariums”, though the author cautions that they were looking at behavioural measures of sunlight exposure and the paper did not prove that sunbeds are good for you. 

Overviews of the comparative scientific literature on the subject still caution against the use of sunbeds. 

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