The reason melanoma incidence is increasing is because of a "diagnostic drift," similar to what we see in the rise of psychological disorders: http://www.ncbi.n

The reason melanoma incidence is increasing is because of a "diagnostic drift," similar to what we see in the rise of psychological disorders: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19519827 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19519827 We are more routinely getting skin lesion check ups and dermatologists and oncologists are more and more cautious, leading to an ever-increasing incidence of stage I melanoma. However, we're not really seeing an increase in later stage melanoma, meaning that the "true" incidence of melanoma is not increasing. It's sort of a huge public health scam. The dermatologists are using this vanity metric of increased diagnoses as evidence that we're in the middle of a melanoma/skin-cancer epidemic, when it's simply not the case. Not that safe sun exposure practices shouldn't be promoted, but the motor behind these messages is a bit of a scam.