Young mother dies for suntan
A YOUNG mother died from skin cancer after she used a sunbed just once a week.
The tragic case last night led to serious warnings about the dangers of tanning.
Teresa Zawadzki, 31, died just six months after visiting a doctor with a large mole on her leg.
The mother-of-eight had delayed seeing her GP until her mother finally persuaded her to get medical help. But she was told that she had cancer and it had spread to her lungs and spine.
Ms Zawadzki was immediately given radiotherapy and chemotherapy – but the treatment failed to beat the disease.
Now Teresa’s family has called for a ban on the tanning machines, saying they are to blame for the “bubbly” woman’s death.
Her devastated mother Ellen Zawadzki, 51, said: “She never sunbathed outside, she didn’t like it, but she had a sunbed in the house. She used it no more than once a week, but obviously even that can have an affect. If that amount of use can cause skin cancer, then these things need to be outlawed.”
The dangers of tanning were last night reinforced by experts who said that Government plans to ban only under-18s from using them do not go far enough.
Cancer specialist Dr Tanya Bleiker, of Derby Hospitals, called for a new law which would mean all sunbed users must first sign a consent form to show they have been given information warning of the dangers.
She said: “Sunbed use increases the risk of skin cancer and I strongly advise people to avoid using them.”
The British Medical Association is also calling for a limit on the number of sunbed sessions in salons for adults and a ban on unmanned and coin- operated tanning machines.
A spokeswoman said: “We wouldn’t call for an outright ban, but we wouldn’t want sunbeds to be available for under-18s and we would like to see tighter regulations in terms of adults using them.”
But Cancer Research UK say they have no plans to push for greater restrictions and individuals must be allowed the “freedom to chose”.
Last summer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer assessed sunbeds and sunlamps as definitively “carcinogenic to humans”, putting using them on a par with smoking or exposure to asbestos.
Campaigners hoped the move, announced in the journal Lancet Oncology, would increase pressure for more stringent controls.
The death of Teresa Zawadzki, of Sinfin, Derby, has left her devastated family to care for eight children.
Seven of them – Leon, three, four-year-old twins Lewis and Lucas, Kieran, six, Nathan eight, Shaun, 12, and Kaylee, 15 – are now being looked after by their grandmother at her two-bedroom home.
Josh, 13, is living with the father of all eight children, who was estranged from their mother when she died.
For months after Ms Zawadzki’s death in March last year, the children stayed with their father.
But he found it difficult to cope and so all but one moved in with their grandmother, who gave up both her jobs as a housekeeper and cleaner to take on the children.
Describing her daughter as an outgoing person who would do anything for her children, Mrs Zawadzki said: “Teresa was such a strong person. She only broke down in front of me once.
“I think she was scared to go and get the mole checked out. It was hard to take in. We just didn’t believe it was happening.”
