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Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

lunduniversity.lu.se

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Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas in South Korea only licensed medical professionals are allowed to open tattoo parlors: > The Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare considers the act of tattooing similar to medical procedures and deemed they should therefore only be performed by a professional with a medical license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattooing_in_South_Korea

I mean, I’m glad that’s not the case

Given the awful nature of doctors handwriting?

Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#102
post #8

If the correlation is proven true then that’s obviously terrible, but I’m in my mid 40s now, tattoo-less, and one of my biggest regrets is not getting a couple tattoos when I was younger. I feel like doing it now looks like a midlife crisis type thing. I always wanted one of those Thai tattoos where they manually tap tap tap the design into your skin with a mallet.

This is the first time I've ever heard of someone regretting not getting a tattoo.

Some people even regret not having anything to regret

Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#103
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tattoo ink is not a food or a drug and is not intended to treat or diagnose any disease or medical condition.

Whereas in South Korea only licensed medical professionals are allowed to open tattoo parlors: > The Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare considers the act of tattooing similar to medical procedures and deemed they should therefore only be performed by a professional with a medical license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattooing_in_South_Korea

The FDA is not empowered to regulate medical procedures. Those are regulated by state laws and agencies. So even if tattooing was considered a medical procedure the FDA would not be able to regulate them.

Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#104

If the correlation is proven true then that’s obviously terrible, but I’m in my mid 40s now, tattoo-less, and one of my biggest regrets is not getting a couple tattoos when I was younger. I feel like doing it now looks like a midlife crisis type thing. I always wanted one of those Thai tattoos where they manually tap tap tap the design into your skin with a mallet.

Surprised at the number of people saying "just do it"!

For what it's worth I would never ink my body. Ever. I would sleep in the disposal hole of a porta potty first, that is how strongly I feel about it.

I have nothing against tattoos in general, many of my close friends have them. But I would never ever personally get one and can't imagine even considering it.

Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#106
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tattoo ink is not a food or a drug and is not intended to treat or diagnose any disease or medical condition.

Whereas in South Korea only licensed medical professionals are allowed to open tattoo parlors: > The Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare considers the act of tattooing similar to medical procedures and deemed they should therefore only be performed by a professional with a medical license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattooing_in_South_Korea

https://theworld.org/stories/2019/10/24/south-koreas-imperil... good read. I live in Korea and have had a lot of my tats done here, people seem to not care much about the tattoo shops, at least the artists I'm friends with said they have no fear of prosecution.

Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#107
post #64

I’m not surprised — tattoo inks are not regulated and the colors are often formed with toxic compounds (e.g. copper). Then the needle avoids the protective barrier provided by the skin. Ironically, while working on a drug program that involved intradermal injection, we needed to tattoo the injection site so we could find it later. The FDA was very demanding that both the procedure and more importantly to them the dye…

The best X-Files episode, "Never Again" from Season 4, is about toxic chemicals in tattoos.

Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma

#108
post #77

"We found no evidence of increasing risk with a larger area of total tattooed body surface." Without a dose response, I'm inclined to believe that the increase in lymphoma seen in people with tattoos has more to do with confounding factors than with the ink or the act of getting a needle poked into your skin. I would think that controlling for all confounders in a study like this would be exceptionally difficult. Tha…

This is a Swedish study, so what might be possible is using the population registry to contact siblings of the cancer patients to ask about traits like tattooing and then their health data would already be in Swedish system and linkable. This would control for a lot of the relevant confounders.

Though not those related to people's choice to get tattoos.
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