Don't Get Fooled Again

A recent Congressional committee investigation found that numerous tanning salons flat lied to investigators posing as teenage girls about the risks of tanning. Maybe it’s just the lingering influence of having read John Grisham’s latest, but I’m betting that this investigation will encourage a class-action plaintiff’s lawyer or twelve to smell contingency fees and take on this industry. That’d be both great news and sad news. Successful class action litigation might change the industry’s practices and result in more risk disclosure to future customers. But class actions also tend to enrich the lawyers and short-change the injured victims through rushed pretrial settlements that are more about buying off plaintiffs lawyers than assuring that the victims of the defendants’ wrongdoing receive fair and adequate compensation for their damages.

Hypothetically speaking, if my oncologist had told me that my melanoma was the result of tanning bed use and I thought that my favorite tanning salon had been less than truthful with me in disclosing the risks of frequenting the establishment, I wouldn’t respond to one of those cheesy television ads with a toll-free number that seeks to sign up a herd of clients for a “mass tort” class-action case. Instead, I’d hire a first-rate personal injury lawyer, with jury trial experience in products liability cases, to aggressively pursue my case as a separate and individual lawsuit. Just sayin’…

With thanks to all of my molemates who are working to raise awareness of the dangers of tanning beds, here’s my take on The Who’s “We Won’t Get Fooled Again”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrHUD2XmLN4


We'll be marching in the streets
And those tan beds we’ll defeat
And the folly of sun worship will be gone
And the tans that spurred C on
Will be fashion that’s so wrong
Save those hides as we pale ones sing our song

I'll tip my hat to the sunscreen solution
Take a bow for the pale revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Tap on my keyboard and say
Just wear ‘screen today
And I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again

Change it has to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from old Sol that's all
But the world looks just the same
Black C’s story ain't changed
'Cause the tanners, they still brown in the outdoors

I'll tip my hat to the sunscreen solution
Take a bow for the pale revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Tap on my keyboard and say
Just wear ‘screen today
And I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll save myself, put my tanning aside
If I happen to be left half alive
I'll join all my molemates and hide from the sky
For I know that the UV lies never die

Do ya?

There's nothing in sunscreen
Cause cancer to go grow on me
And the warnings are misplaced, do not fry
And the tanning that is left
Is now the tanning that’s our fright
And the risks have all grown larger in our sight

I'll tip my hat to the sunscreen solution
Take a bow for the pale revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Tap on my keyboard and say
Just wear ‘screen today
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet your new onc
Thanks to your Doc Oz