California, famous for tanned bodies and year-round sunshine, will be the first state to restrict teenagers under 18 at artificial tanning booths if a bill passed yesterday by the Assembly becomes law.

Lawmakers, citing a rise in skin cancer cases in California and across the nation, voted 42-26 to add artificial tanning to the list of teenage no-no's. The bill requires teenagers to have a doctor's prescription before tanning indoors. Right now, California is among 27 states that require permission from a parent or legal guardian for teens ages 15 to 18 to use tanning salons. Children 14 and younger must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Teens like to visit tanning salons before proms, vacations and weddings, according to the tanning industry, which employs 160,000 people nationally and generates $5 billion a year. California is estimated to have 1,500 tanning salons.

But backers of the bill, including the California Society of Dermatology and Dermatologic Surgery, blame tanning salons, in part, for the 1 million new cases of skin cancer diagnosed every year in the United States. The group said 7,400 people die annually from melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

"There is a big difference between going to the beach and a tanning salon," said the bill's author, Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael. "When kids go to the beach they put on sunscreen."

Vitamin D Deficiency Called Major Health Risk

Many Americans, particularly African Americans, may be suffering from unrecognized deficiencies of a key nutrient -- vitamin D -- that increase the risk of bone problems and perhaps a host of other diseases, a growing number of scientists say.

Pediatricians scattered around the country have been surprised to see children suffering from rickets, a bone disorder caused by vitamin D deficiency that had been largely relegated to a bygone era. A few doctors have come across adults who were disabled by severe muscle weakness and pain, sometimes for years, until they were treated for undiagnosed vitamin D deficiency. And recent studies suggest low vitamin D may be putting the elderly at higher risk for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis and life-threatening falls and fractures.

But beyond bone and muscle problems, some evidence suggests a dearth of vitamin D may be associated with an array of more serious illnesses, including many forms of cancer, high blood pressure, depression, and immune-system disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

In response, many scientists have begun pushing to sharply boost the official recommendations for how much vitamin D everyone should get daily, either by taking supplements, by eating more food that contains the nutrient or from the sun -- a major source of vitamin D. [emphasis added]