Toxic Tattoo Ink Rebuttal of Medical News Today Article
Toxic Tattoo Ink Arguments don't stand up to
scrutiny:
Baseless Conclusions seized on by Laser Medical specialty to
hijack FDA into hopes of forcing tattooists to use only inks that are laser removable.
A sentence by sentence examination of a recent typical article to illustrate how misguided and blatantly unscientific "scientific"
reporting can be.
By Westley Wood (. Original Text
included.)
Title of Medical News Today Article: Chemicals in tattoo inks need closer scrutiny, 14 Mar 2005
Source:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=21202
The first BS sentence begins:
As tattoos have grown in popularity, so have complaints of adverse side effects associated with both their application and removal.This opening sentence is a "fabrication - with a twist."
For this statement to be true we would have to know
- --a) the number of complaints
-- b) the number of tattoos applied and removed,
--c) both before and
--d) after popularity. There is no data, not even within the tattoo industry. How can this sentence be uttered with a straight face. This is a total invention
(--but wait for the twist).- To be meaningful the statement has to be based on the ratios of the complaint data. No one would try to pull a fast one and claim they mean raw count, which is unsupported.
- To be meaningful the statement presents that the complaints are legitimate, of course they would have to have been investigated as most likely true and convincingly associated with application or removal. How could this make its way into print?
- There is no mention of what these "necessarily-significant" side effects are. Later in the article we are told what these so-called "dire" adverse effects really are. Wait till you hear the ridiculous. This is good stuff.
- The inclusion of "removal" reveals the twist -- which is, that it's the word "application" that is out of place. The sentence should be read with only the "removal" word:
- As tattoos have grown in popularity, so have complaints of adverse side effects
associated with (laser) removal. Now, finally something that makes sense.
The disappointment is from doctors and laser technicians not getting the results they want (removal) using laser technology. Clients are getting less than optimal results, unwanted side effects from laser removal. It has nothing to do with "application" at all.
The purpose of the study is stated openly: to help justify baninng inks that are difficult or impossible to remove with lasers. (For easy Laser removal.)
The justification for the ban will require finding certain potentially toxic particles.. The FDA has not acted on this yet.
The problem is not that ink contains detectable chemicals, but that tattoo ink is not regulated to make laser removal easy. . That's the problem which the study is meant to call for.
As a tattoo ink supplier, the second in line to hear adverse-effect-reporting we state that reports due to ink are
less than rare. Though not suggested in this article it would be good to pre-dispel any attempt to resurrect the discredited argument: "under-reporting". Any argument based on under-reporting is not valid unless a study is done to support the theory. No study has been done and no evidence is available for this charge.
As it is, laser removal has significant areas of failure and should be recognized as an un-reliable alternative that may actually be causing harm. Don't be surprised. Studies of the health effects of laser removal are conspicuously lacking. If anything, the FDA should take a long hard look at the laser's damaging effects on the body and what new chemicals are being created by the transforming effects of the
pigment. Laser supporters have openly state that they don't know and it's
but no hint of caution using these devices.
The desire is to formulate tattoo inks for removal and make permanent ink illegal.
This would need a legislative Act to
shift the
blame for such a infringement of states rights away from the FDA.
Here is a recent notice, Dec. 2017 from an ink manufacturer: