RFK Jr. Wants To Give Your Kids Early Start On Their Melanoma

Well he can't be the only one walking around looking like a leather bag.

Mar 24, 2026

Oh boy, it is getting hard to keep track of the myriad ways that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is making America healthy again. As of just a few days ago, we’re just 13 measles cases away from making it an even 1500, which we imagine is a very exciting milestone for him. He’s also been working to mainstream some of the sketchier peptides, which does not seem like a thing that will end well. Oh, and last week he put out a notice announcing that the FDA’s planned ban on minors using tanning beds that has been in the works since 2015 will not go into effect after all.

Kennedy, notably, is an avid user of tanning beds himself, so it’s not terribly surprising that he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with giving teens a head start on looking like a vintage leather bag by the time they’re 35.

While 20 states and the District of Columbia have banned minors from indoor tanning on their own, it’s still legal and accessible in most of the country so long as one has a note from their “parents” (or whoever in their friend group has the best handwriting) or doctor (as is the case in Oregon and Washington) saying it’s okay.

This is not great! And that’s not just because teenagers are not yet old enough to make an informed decision about this, it’s that the younger you are, the more dangerous it is to go tanning, period. When you are young, your skin is still developing, which means it is more sensitive to UV rays and DNA damage. According to the American Cancer Society, indoor tanning before the age of 35 “increases melanoma risk by 59 percent, squamous cell carcinoma by 67 percent, and basal cell carcinoma by 29 percent.”

So it’s not “You can’t play the slots until you’re 18 or drink until you are 21 because you aren’t mature enough” so much as it is “You must be this tall to ride.” Or it should have been.

The notice of withdrawal from the FDA, signed by Kennedy, cited “personal choice and parental decision-making” as one of the factors in its decision, echoing the poorly thought-out rationale behind much of the Right’s policies regarding children’s health and well-being. The general rule is that parents are always right about everything when it comes to their own children, even if their decisions lead to their children getting sick or being otherwise harmed (except in cases where they accept their transgender children for who they are and allow them to go on puberty blockers, which have been in use for decades to prevent precocious puberty and, unlike tanning beds, are actually safe to use). This, however, is even less understandable than allowing parents to not vaccinate their kids. We know that there are parents out there who believe, incorrectly, that their child will be less healthy from getting a vaccine. Who thinks their kid is going to be less healthy without a tan?

If anything, a ban like this would probably make things a lot easier for parents, who then do not have to argue with their daughter about whether or not she can fry herself in a tanning bed for the weeks leading up to prom. Responsible parents would likely love to be able to say “Oh gosh, we’d love to, but it’s against the law,” if only to have one less thing to fight about. But even if a parent does, for some reason, think it would be a good idea for their kid to do this, that doesn’t mean that it is one.

While the dangers of tanning are well known at this point, teenagers think they are immortal, so “you’ll have a higher risk of skin cancer at some point in the future” is not a convincing argument to them. But there are a hell of a lot of people out there who wish they had listened to it.

This is not the first time in recent history that Kennedy’s FDA has walked back a planned regulation regarding health and safety in the beauty industry. This past January, they killed a rule that would have required cosmetics companies to test talc-containing makeup products for asbestos. The news shook a whole lot of people who were not aware that this was not already a thing. Because, you know, it does seem like common sense that if there is a risk for asbestos in anything, you should probably make sure it doesn’t have asbestos. Especially if you are putting it on your face.

Also, in January, the FDA missed its own self-imposed deadline to ban formaldehyde in hair straightening and softening products — as it is common in many hair products aimed at Black people, as well as in the products used for keratin-infused “Brazilian Blowouts” (which, in my opinion are a waste of money anyway). Again, you’d think that this would be a no-brainer, but I suppose that doesn’t count for much, given who we’re talking about here.

The beauty space, which thrives on novelty, tends to be especially prone to misinformation regarding the safety of practices and products — almost especially when that information is counterintuitive. After several years of people really, finally, taking care of their skin by not only not tanning, but also by religiously wearing sunscreen regardless of the weather, there’s been a backlash of TikTok influencers baselessly declaring sunscreen (chemical sunscreen in particular) unsafe and encouraging their followers to sunbathe and even go tanning — which, I guess, is one way to go if you really want to get skin cancer and end up looking like Tan Mom by the time you are 30.

Personally, I think that all tanning salons should be required to put up a picture of her in a prominent space on their wall, as a warning to their patrons.

There is almost no propaganda more potent than “This thing you thought you knew is wrong and the exact opposite is actually true!” People love feeling like they have a secret knowledge, that they know something others don’t, especially when those others are “the experts.” It’s especially effective in the case of something that is simultaneously counterintuitive and intuitive. With tanning, we’ve heard for years that it is dangerous and causes skin cancer, but people also intuitively feel that “sunshine” is good for you. One of the things RFK Jr. promised upon taking his position as secretary of Health and Human Services was that he would end the federal government’s supposed “aggressive suppression” of “sunshine.” People like being told “the experts are wrong, your gut instinct is right.”

It also just “feels” correct to some people (even some doctors who have written prescriptions for it) that tanning beds help the body produce vitamin D and help to treat or prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). In our current vibes-based reality, that is a whole lot more convincing than the fact that the rays that do help the body produce vitamin D are UVB rays, not the UVA rays emitted by tanning beds, that vitamin D supplements are more effective, and that there really is no scientific proof that it does anything at all for SAD.

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The only “benefit” to tanning is having darker skin, which can be achieved now in a number of less ridiculously dangerous ways at this point — spray tans, self tanner, that Jergens stuff that gives you a gradual tan that I have a thing of and always mean to use but never get around to it. The idea that a “base tan” prevents you from burning is a straight up myth, and burning isn’t the only way the sun damages your skin anyway.

It does matter that the FDA be clear that tanning is harmful, especially for teenagers. When people get conflicting advice on things like this, they’re likely going to err on the side of hoping that the people who say it’s fine for them to do what they want are the ones who are correct. That’s just human nature.

Hopefully, parents are smart enough to not let their kids go tanning and, frankly, not to go tanning themselves. But if they’re not, they can’t say they didn’t know it could turn out like this: