FDA Withdraws Proposed Ban on Tanning Bed Use by Anyone Under 18

The Food and Drug Administration has withdrawn a proposed federal rule that would have barred all Americans under 18 from using tanning beds, according to NBC News and NPR. NBC News reported that the withdrawal came Tuesday; the notice was signed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

First proposed in 2015, the rule would also have required adults who use a tanning salon to sign a waiver acknowledging risks including skin cancer and severe burns, NBC News and NPR reported. The FDA received more than 8,100 comments on the proposal, NBC News reported; NPR put the number at more than 9,000. Some commenters backed “personal choice and parental decision-making,” and others raised the “vulnerability of young people” and “compliance burdens on small businesses,” per NBC News. NPR said many comments came from people in the tanning industry, who cited personal choice, existing state limits and fears that tanning would go underground.

Kennedy’s memo said the FDA was withdrawing the proposal because of “scientific and technical concerns” and “possible unintended consequences,” NPR reported. An HHS spokesperson told NPR the department is reassessing “how to balance public health considerations with consumer access and choice.” An FDA spokesperson told NBC News that withdrawal “does not mean that exposure to UV radiation does not cause skin cancer,”.

The practical effect depends on state law. States including California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas and Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., already ban minors from tanning beds, while others set lower age limits or require parental consent, NBC News reported. The FDA regulates the devices as class II medical devices and requires a black-box warning against use by anyone under 18, but that label carries little weight in states with no restriction, NBC News noted.

NBC News and NPR cite the following health evidence. Tanning beds can emit as much as 15 times the ultraviolet radiation of direct sunlight, NBC News reported. A 2025 study found melanoma rates of about 5% among people who used tanning beds versus about 2% among those who did not, NBC News said. Using tanning beds before age 20 carries a nearly 50% higher risk of melanoma, according to one major analysis cited by NPR. The World Health Organization places indoor tanning devices in the same category of carcinogens as tobacco and asbestos, NPR reported.

Dr. Susan Taylor, president of the American Academy of Dermatology, called the rule a “huge” step forward and said the industry should not be counted on to police itself, according to NPR and NBC News. Hunter Shain, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco, told NPR that “the argument against the usage of tanning beds is at least as strong as tobacco use.” The Indoor Tanning Association and the American Suntanning Association disputed the evidence on early-life exposure in their comments, NPR reported. NPR noted that Kennedy, before his nomination, pledged to end the government’s “aggressive suppression” of “sunshine.”