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 “Almost everybody these days has a tattoo, and nobody is talking
about the side effects of ink deposits,” said senior author Dr.
Andreas Luch of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in
Berlin.
“There is no proof that these ink ingredients are safe, being
injected into the body,” Luch told Reuters Health.
Between one and five percent of tattooed people suffer a bacterial
infection, and some people can have allergic reactions to the ink,
according to the report.
Those are short-term effects. It is harder to measure the long-term
effects of ink since tattoo inks are in most countries classified as
cosmetics, Luch said.
Since the inks are classified as cosmetics, their long-term
toxicology can’t be tested in animals, Luch said. In his opinion,
tattoo inks should be a completely different product category.
The skin barrier effectively keeps surface cosmetics out of the
body, he said.
But tattoo ink is injected into living tissue, which contains blood
vessels, nerves and immune cells.
“We need to assume that all of these ink ingredients, including
preservatives, processing aids or whatever, will become systemically
available in the body over time,” Luch said. “Regulation based on
cosmetics is insufficient.”
Examining the bodies of the deceased who have had tattoos for
decades has shown that up to 90 percent of the ink has disappeared
from the skin, he said.
“We cannot answer the question what is going to happen with these
inks,” whether they accumulate in organs over time or are excreted,
Luch said.
Similar questions remain for laser tattoo removal: when the pigments
are fractured and fragmented under the skin - where do they go – he
added.
“In the U.S. the (Food and Drug Administration) has the authority to
regulate inks, but is not currently doing so,” said Dr. Michi
Shinohara, a dermatologist at the University of Washington in
Seattle who was not involved in the review.
“Regulation of tattoo parlors and tattoo artists is left to the
states, and the requirements for operating vary widely from very
minimal (bloodborne pathogen training) to fairly complex (hundreds
of hours of apprenticeship),” Shinohara told Reuters Health by
email.
There are no industry standards for ink ingredients, the industry is
minimally regulated, and few problems with tattoos are reported to
authorities, she said.
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Modern tattoo inks mostly contain organic pigments, but can also
include preservatives and contaminants like nickel, arsenic and
lead, Luch and his coauthors note. In one study in Switzerland,
preservatives banned for use in cosmetics were found in 14 percent
of tattoo ink samples.
Reactions tend to be more common from colored inks than from black
and white ones, Luch said.
Tattooing has been going on for at least 5,000 years, but has become
a modern trend, with roughly 120 million people in the western
hemisphere having at least one tattoo, Luch said.
“The acute risks are well known,” including pain, bleeding,
infection and allergic reaction, Luch said. “The tattooist at least
needs to explain that something like this could happen,” he said.
But long term risks, like organ toxicity or cancer, are still
unknown, he said.
“It’s an individual decision, we cannot tell someone not to get a
tattoo,” Luch said. “I wouldn’t like to have a tattoo on my skin,
but if a person likes colored skin, what can I say?”
It’s not necessary for people to stop getting tattoos, Shinohara
said, “but I think people should be smart about it - research the
parlor, ask about any recent problems, follow the aftercare
instructions and report immediately to the tattoo artist and a
physician for any problems that occur after tattooing.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1MXGlrm The Lancet, online July 23, 2015.
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