BfS for the legal anchoring of skin cancer prevention

Together with the partners of the Alliance for UV Protection, the BfS stands up for better options for skin cancer prevention. To this end, skin cancer prevention is to be anchored in the "Präventionsgesetz des Bundes" (Federal Preventive Health Care Act). At the meeting of the Alliance for UV Protection in Neuherberg near Munich, BfS President Inge Paulini said "We want to reduce the number of UV-related skin cancer cases. However, we first have to stop their rise. This requires health education and information as well as the development of health promoting structures. The Act to Strengthen Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in living environments and companies (Preventive Health Care Act) provides for both. We therefore want to work towards making the prevention of skin cancer part of this Act", said BfS President Inge Paulini at the meeting of the UV Alliance for UV Protection in Neuherberg near Munich.

Number of new skin cancer cases continues to increase

BfS has been working for decades to prevent UV-related diseases and above all skin cancer, by means of research, information and preventive measures. However, extrapolations based on data from the cancer registry of Schleswig-Holstein from 2017 show that the number of new skin cancer cases has continued to increase: about 291,000 people contracted skin cancer in 2014, of which about 254,000 were diagnosed with the light type cancer and about 36,000 with black skin cancer (melanoma). This represents a ten percent increase compared to the previous year. "These data and the fact that the number of new skin cancer cases doubles every 10 to 15 years show very clearly that skin cancer is a significant health risk and we urgently need to do something about it," stressed Paulini.

This is why the BfS, together with the 19 other partners in the Alliance for UV Protection, demands that skin cancer prevention be included in the Preventive Health Care Act as a partial goal of the health targets "Growing Up Healthily" and "Getting Old Healthily".

The Preventive Health Care Act, which came into force in summer 2015, aims to establish disease prevention and health promotion within the peoples' direct living environment, i.e. in day nurse-ries, schools, at work, or in nursing homes. The competent authority for the Federal Preventive Health Care Act is the Bundesgesundheitsministerium (Federal Ministry of Health)

Background Information on the Alliance for UV-Protection

The Alliance for UV-Protection unites renowned companies, organisations and competent authorities relating to radiation protection, science and medicine that have been standing up for practical UV-protection for years. The Alliance stands up for a reasonable use of UV-radiation. The Alliance aims to reduce the number of new cases of skin cancer and other health damage from UV-radiation in the long term. The meeting at the BfS site Neuherberg was focussed on discussing further steps to implement the objectives laid down in the policy paper adopted last year. The Alliance was established in 2011.