Comment on Tattoo Ink Moves Through the Body, Killing Immune Cells and Weakening Vaccine Response
FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 10 hours agoIt’s also important to keep on mind that the burden of proof is on something to prove or is safe, not that something is unsafe. It happening to human cells in mice would have me assume it happens to human cells in humans until proven otherwise (that’s the null hypothesis in this situation). But also I don’t have a tattoo or any interest in getting one so I’m not too bothered by this.
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 hours ago
Humans have been tattooing each other for over 5000 years. I would argue that it’s not really a case of “they need to be proven to be safe”. That ship has sailed. If they are unsafe, we should know, but I think the burden of proof has definitely shifted on tattoos given their extensive history without obvious negative repercussion
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
What you’re missing is that the ingredients of tattoo ink have changed dramatically in the last 100 or so years.
Prior to then tattoo inks were made mostly with soot or black ash mixed with plant oils.
Nowadays the inks are almost entirely synthetic, sourced from the same companies that make industrial paint, and have been tested and some found to contain carbon black nanoparticles, Texanol, BHT, 2-phenoxyethanol, and various other things that are confirmed (or reasonably suspected) to be toxic and which definitely wouldn’t be in historical inks.
The proof should be entirely on the suppliers and administrators (tattooists) to confirm their ink and tattoos are safe, not the users. Yet their regulations are very lax in most countries, requiring no pharmaceutical testing even though they are injected into people’s skin.
Some refs: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25833640/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38387033/
theconversation.com/whats-in-tattoo-ink-my-teams-…