Beneficial effects of sun exposure on cancer mortality?Gord Ainsleigh is a spokesperson for the sunbed industry. He is not a dermatologist at all, he's a chiropractor with a long-distance habit of running. H Gordon Ainsleigh, DC
Views from behind the Golden Haze Terry Polevoy, MD, FRCP(C) 20 September 1997 If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it must not be a duck, . . . right? Again, I am not a basic scientist, just a poor doctor of medicine who happens to have been intimately involved with someone who died of melanoma in 1993. That was the year that the noted article above hit the medical library shelves, and the very year that the sunbed industry started increasing their hold on more victims. I see skin cancer every week, and see how it ravages families. Yes, some of those cancers were actually iatrogenic. Doctors of medicine, yes even doctors actually used x-rays, and ultraviolet light to treat acne many years ago. But the majority of new iatrogenic cancers will be thanks to the Ainsleigh's of the world, who allow their "academic" work, sorry their pseudo-scientific hobbies, pass as gospel. Those "doctors", and there are others, who have allowed their own articles to be used by others to injure and maim unsuspecting victims are guilty of "melanomagenesis". But, why should a chiropractor, a competitive runner to boot, lay claim to having discovered the cure for 30,000 cancer cases a year? Why "doctor" Ainsleigh should be given the Nobel Prize for medicine, but that would have to undergo peer review, and stand the test of time. There are too many gurus in the world, too many saviors, too many experts appearing on talk television, or who write their weekly column in the "dogpatch" news to worry about. But, when a person who earned a degree from some chiropractic college allows his name to be used knowingly, that puts him in another category. When he cavorts around in the same halls as screen super heroes, and half-naked women hawking sunbeds, that's when it gets just a little bit dicey. He isn't the only one who has allowed his name to be used by the suntan industry. At least two dermatologists, one of them the president of a major Canadian dermatological society have also allowed their names to be repeatedly referenced. Why haven't they sued the industry, or confronted them in public? Why aren't they on Oprah, or Jerry Springer with their melanoma patients exposing those sleeze bags and slime balls who have co-opted their research, taken their radio interviews out of context, and parlayed it into a windfall profit for themselves, and cemetery plots for our children? Unfortunately, the people at the International Smart Tan Network, like that lame brain Joseph A. Levy, still say that there are "risks in avoiding the sun". Last winter they spent big bucks trying to negate the cold facts that melanomas are created by sunbeds. That is indisputable. It is not an issue up for discussion. Remember, California Tan had just been whipped by the FTC in December 1996. They lied about the benefits of the sun, and yet Joey "U.V." Levy found that hard to swallow. The Big Lie created by him evolved into the INTERNATIONAL SMART TAN MONTH. The month of March 1997 was the end-all and be-all for their industry of vultures. Ten years ago, Sun Industries, of Jonesboro, Arkansas was charged by the FTC for lying to the public, along with other companies. They just don't get it. All they care about is their profit margin. Over the last decade their industry has convinced 2 million people to become regular customers in North America. Over 70% of them are women. But the manufacturers keep lying, and people keep burning. Only you can do something about it. You can earn big bucks killing people slowly with a tan or you can ask your legislature to end the death of tens of thousands from melanoma at the hands of a not-so-silent killer, The International Smart Tan Network. |