Ink Regulation Essay

Ink Regulation

Tattoos have become one of the biggest trends in the United States. More and more people are getting tattooed. More and more employers are accepting tattoos and even find them beneficial to their image. With the popularity and the acceptance in the professional world, tattoos are taking the nation by storm. There’s only one problem...regulation. Where needles must be brand new and sterile for every session, the actual ink that stays in the body is not. The more trending tattoos have become the more we see health concerns with the ink that is put in the body.

Nearly 10% of people who have gotten tattoos have had negative reactions past 6 months of acquiring them. “Researchers from the NYU Langone Medical Center surveyed 300 people in New York’s Central Park. Of those who had a tattoo, more than 10 percent said they developed abnormal reactions as a result, including pain, itching, and infection that sometimes required antibiotics”(FDA,1). Most cases that had severe reactions were due to red dyes in ink or other bright colors. [The FDA states that because of other public health priorities and a previous lack of evidence of safety concerns they have not regulated such products](FDA,1). With tattooing on the rise more evidence has come up to give the FDA a reason to regulate the

Nanoparticles are the microscopic size of the ink, and studies have shown them to travel from where they were located to other parts of the body including sensitive tissues. This is alarming due to the fact that these nanoparticles have the capability to change cells into cancerous ones and it can spread. “Evidence suggests that some nanoparticles may induce toxic effects in your brain and cause nerve damage, and some may also be carcinogenic” (Elizabeth,1).With these scientific statements the FDA should rethink the “lack of