(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Make America Tan Again: RFK Jr. thinks teens are too pale [1] ['Lisa Needham', 'View Profile'] Date: 2026-05-06 Well, we’re getting rid of antidepressants, and we’ve already completely kneecapped vaccines. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dares to ask: What if we did more? Sadly, “more” in this instance means making the world safe for teenagers to access tanning beds—because why shouldn’t teens have the same opportunity to get melanoma as their older peers? It’s genuinely distressing that this probably came about because Kennedy himself is basically nothing but a roasted strip of fruit leather who has been sizzling in a tanning bed for decades. Sure, tanning beds blast out ultraviolet radiation at 15 times that of the actual sun, but how dare you deprive teens of the joy of baking themselves straight into early melanoma? Attribution: AP A display of disposable flavored vapes is seen next to gum and candy in a store. Before HHS turned into nothing but a way to force Kennedy’s exceedingly unhealthy, peculiar views on the country, the Food and Drug Administration proposed stricter tanning bed rules—because the government used to care about things like making sure teens didn’t get easily preventable cancers. But how dare the government get between a teen and a tanning bed, right? This is part and parcel of one of the more unhinged of Kennedy’s MAHA beliefs, which is that the government has been at war with sunshine. That absolutely worm-brained idea is shared by conservative wellness influencers like Paul Saladino, a psychiatrist who claims to have built up resistance to the sun and now has a “solar callus.” And if Saladino decides he needs any sort of skin protection—though why would he, really?—then he uses his own custom mix of zinc and beef tallow. Actual scientists who work on skin cancer, of course, have pointed out that there is no such thing as a “solar callus” nor can you build up a tolerance to the sun. Instead, you just make your risk of getting skin cancer absurdly higher. Making Melanoma Great Again joins other extremely healthy administration moves, like a very hands-off approach to regulating pesticides, or the FDA fast-tracking flavored nicotine vapes because President Donald Trump said so. Yeah, about those vapes … while ensuring access to tanning beds for teens, HHS has simultaneously decided that it will no longer focus on things that are actually detrimental to children’s health, like smoking and nicotine. Related | RFK Jr.’s new food guidelines smell a little rotten The administration’s “Make Our Children Healthy Again” initiative failed to mention tobacco at all, save for when it references the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Now that’s the picture of health! The government’s shift to pushing this sort of MAHA wellness bullshit is objectively bad for the health of the nation. But it’s also being helmed by the dumbest, griftiest people who are making it far easier for us to get cancer. We’ve known for decades that tanning beds and nicotine are dangerous—especially for children—but hey, look at Kennedy. He turned out alright, yeah? What teen doesn’t want to emulate a weird 70-something beef tallow tanning enthusiast? Thank god they’ll now get their chance. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/6/800034401/health/rfk-jr-tanning-beds-for-teens/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/