The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, London

A quarter of a million children in England aged 11 to 17 face a higher risk of developing malignant skin cancer by using tanning beds, researchers said on Friday.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the researchers called for urgent legislation to stop sunbed use by minors in England, as is already the case for Scotland and Wales.

The risk of melanoma-the most lethal form of skin cancer-increases by 75 percent when use of tanning devices starts before the age of 30, according to a study published earlier this year in The Lancet Oncology.

In July, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) placed tanning beds alongside cigarettes and asbestos as a top-level cancer threat.

Current rates of use in England "would lead to more than an estimated quarter of a million 11- to 17-year-olds being put at risk of developing malignant melanoma," wrote Catherine Thomson from Cancer Research UK and Professor Chris Twelves from St James's University Hospital in Leeds.