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Tattoos are becoming more and more popular. There are tattoo studios in every major city, and there are lines for some of the artists. The same applies to permanent makeup. More and more beauty salons offer so-called treatments. “Permanent makeup”. Meanwhile, GIS pays attention to the inks that tattoo artists and beauticians use. They are ordinary chemicals by law.
Carcasses out of control
– Tattoo and permanent makeup inks are neither cosmetics nor medical products, so they should be treated like ordinary chemicals. They may contain substances that cause cancer, genetic mutations, are harmful to reproduction, cause allergies, informs the Chief Sanitary Inspector.
EU cosmetics legislation prohibits the use of many substances in their production. However, tattoo inks are not subject to these regulations. The person opening the tattoo studio is not obliged to notify the State Sanitary Inspection of this, so it cannot verify the qualifications or the conditions in which he works.
Colorful chaos by 2021
Now there are no EU rules for tattoo inks. They are only covered by the Directive obliging manufacturers not to supply dangerous products and by regulations on the placing of chemicals on the market.
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In 2015, the European Commission asked the European Chemicals Agency to prepare documentation to restrict the use of certain dyes in tattoo and permanent make-up inks. The prepared restriction proposal contains both dyes and other substances that may be present in these inks. About 4000 different substances will be assessed. It is planned that such restrictions will be introduced in 2021.
Lead, cadmium and arsenic
In 2017, scientists from the Department of Public Health of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice found toxic heavy metals in dyes used by tattoo artists. The highest concentration of cadmium, lead and arsenic was found in color inks. The most polluted ones turned out to be green because they contained arsenic. The effects of arsenic poisoning usually they show up after a few years. These can be cancers of the skin, lung, kidney, liver and bladder.
It may be a problem too laser tattoo removal. This is a very effective method, but no one checks how the dyes used will behave in contact with the laser energy. A few years ago, the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin carried out such a study. It turned out that the decomposition of the blue pigment resulted in the formation of prussic acid and benzene, and the orange pigment – poisonous aniline.
Tattoo artist unattended
The State Sanitary Inspection does not have the authority to verify the qualifications of the tattoo artist. In Poland, there is also no obligation to report the commencement of activities in the field of tattooing to the bodies of the State Sanitary Inspection. And although the Act on preventing and combating infections and infectious diseases in humans obliges those undertaking activities which violate the continuity of human tissues to implement and apply procedures ensuring protection against infections and infectious diseases, in the case of tattoo parlors it is difficult to enforce . The poviat state sanitary inspector may give an opinion on the procedures for sterilization of equipment, methods of skin disinfection and decontamination of rooms and devices, but at the request of the entity responsible for their implementation.
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Tattoo with a virus
As emphasized by GIS, tattooing is a risk of spreading infections and infectious diseases in humans, especially with HCV, HBV and HIV viruses, as well as skin diseases and allergic reactions. HCV virus can survive and be infectious on the surfaces of various objects for up to 16 hours at room temperature and up to 14 days at 4 degrees Celsius. It can be neutralized only after 10 minutes at 65-75 degrees C and after 2 minutes of UV exposure.
HBV is more contagious than HCV. HBV infection can occur as a result of introducing 0,00004 ml of an infected person’s blood invisible to the naked eye into the body. For comparison, 0,1 ml of infected blood is needed to transmit HIV infection. The temperature of 100 degrees Celsius does not kill the HBV virus, and sterilization with dry hot air is not very effective. That is why the Ministry of Health has prepared a project «Regulation of the Minister of Health on detailed sanitary and hygienic requirements for the provision of hairdressing, cosmetic, tattoo and biological regeneration services«. It assumes that the person carrying out the sterilization must have completed a qualification course in the field of sterilization and disinfection technologies according to the program approved by the minister of health.