Is A Lead Tattoos Dangerous

A 2003 Harris Poll reported that 16% of U.Due south. adults are tattooed, including over a third of those anile 25–29. Despite the art's growing popularity, the toxicology of tattoos is poorly understood. Now some ink components—particularly heavy metals—have raised concerns. A lawsuit set to become to trial in October 2005 has been filed against 9 tattoo ink companies for violations of California'due south Proposition 65, which requires that Californians be warned before exposure to chemicals causing cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive damage.

"Ane reason nosotros started looking at tattoos is that the research nosotros've done suggests teenage girls in detail are a huge market now for tattoos," says Deborah Sivas, president of the nonprofit American Environmental Safety Institute (AESI), which filed the adjust. The business organisation is not that the inks are acutely harmful, just rather that chronic exposure to some metals—especially lead—is a known trouble.

Titanium and aluminum are often used equally colorants in tattoos; more than worrisome, inks using nonmetal colorants may include traces of antimony, arsenic, beryllium, chromium, cobalt, lead, nickel, and selenium (AESI filed over the latter 8 metals). Sivas says the ink used for a 3 by 5 inch tattoo contains ane–23 micrograms of lead, versus the 0.v micrograms per day permitted under Suggestion 65.

Understanding exposure to lead and other metals once incorporated into a tattoo is non unproblematic. A healed tattoo is a complicated array of ink particles trapped inside dermal fibroblasts, macrophages, and mast cells. "One of the biggest problems is, over the period of fourth dimension, how is exposure evaluated?" says Westley Wood, president of Unimax Supply, a tattoo equipment supplier and ink producer, which settled out of court in the AESI lawsuit. "Should it be counted every unmarried day for the rest of your life, or is it dissipated in the body within a calendar month?"

"Metal toxicity has non been an observed problem," asserts md Linda Dixon, president of the American Academy of Micropigmentation, a cosmetic tattooing trade group and manufacturer of Kolorsource brand of cosmetic ink. All the same, she adds, "Data nigh pigments in traditional tattoo products is usually a merchandise clandestine and not shared. We demand information which is scientifically based."

Dixon suggests publishing a listing of pigments that are known to be safe and those known to exist toxic. "Know your colors, know your pigments," she says. "The scientists know what to avoid, and this should be common knowledge in the tattoo industries." Though tattoo inks are bailiwick to regulation past the Nutrient and Drug Administration as cosmetics and color additives, that agency does not currently attempt to actually regulate tattooing or the pigments involved.

Despite the upcoming court battle, among the 17% of tattooed Americans the Harris Poll say regret their indelible marks, the greatest reason for dissatisfaction is not the safety of the tattoo but having been inscribed with the wrong person'due south name.

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