FDA Warns of Tattoo Ink Tied to Harmful Infections

June 16, 2023 – The FDA draft steerage launched this week on doable contamination of tattoo ink was not regarding Whitney Donohue, 34, proprietor of Overlook Me Not Tattoo in Billings, MT. 

“I get our ink straight by the producer – not at a retailer or by Amazon or eBay,” she mentioned. “You by no means know if it’s going to be repackaged.”

Tattoo artists themselves, she mentioned, regulate the standard of ink they use. 

Nonetheless, the menace is actual, mentioned Bruce Brod, MD, a medical professor of dermatology on the College of Pennsylvania Well being System. “I’ve seen a number of totally different infections from tattooing, and they’re from organisms that are inclined to contaminate issues in damp, liquid-type environments.”

The FDA launched the brand new draft steerage Monday aiming to cut back using pathogen-contaminated tattoo ink, which may trigger cussed infections which can be particularly arduous to deal with, dermatologists mentioned.

“Tattooing includes puncturing the dermis about 100 occasions per second with needles and depositing ink 1.5 to 2 millimeters beneath the floor of the pores and skin, deep into the dermis,” the steerage states. “Contaminated tattoo ink could cause infections and severe accidents. As a result of these inks are injected, pathogens or different dangerous substances in these inks can journey from the injection website by the blood and lymphatic methods to different elements of the physique.”

“Infections will typically unfold alongside the drainage channels within the pores and skin and create squiggly, uneven traces of massive pink, lumpy nodules,” Brod mentioned. 

Between 2003 and 2023, there have been 18 remembers of tattoo inks that had been contaminated with varied microorganisms, in accordance with the FDA. In Could 2019, the FDA issued a security alert advising shoppers, tattoo artists, and retailers to keep away from utilizing or promoting sure tattoo inks contaminated with microorganisms.

Respected ink producers use a course of referred to as gamma radiation, which refers to electromagnetic radiation of excessive frequencies to kill microorganisms within the ink and its packaging. 

Many of the reliable, high-quality ink producers are well-known amongst tattoo artists, Donohue mentioned. 

Whereas she has seen clients with delicate pores and skin have allergic reactions, she has not seen somebody come again with an an infection in her 9 years working within the tattoo trade.

As a result of tattoo ink is taken into account a beauty product, there’s not a lot regulatory oversight concerned, which suggests the sterility and high quality of substances fluctuate, mentioned Teo Soleymani, MD, an assistant medical professor of dermatology and dermatological surgical procedure on the UCLA David Geffen College of Medication.

“Cosmeceuticals aren’t regulated by the FDA like prescription medicine,” he mentioned. “What we have seen many occasions is inadvertent contamination throughout the utility course of or contamination whereas the inks are being made.”

In years previous, unclean needles spreading hepatitis and HIV had been extra of a priority, however these charges have dropped considerably, Soleymani mentioned. 

The infections which have elevated are from uncommon micro organism that exist in stagnant water. And they’re injected into part of the physique that enables them to evade the immune system, he mentioned: shallow sufficient that there aren’t many related blood vessels, however not nonetheless beneath the layer of pores and skin that will get sloughed off each 28 days. 

Typically, antibiotics alone gained’t minimize it, and the tattoo would require surgical removing. 

“The aesthetic you had been going for needs to be not solely eliminated, however you are left with a surgical scar,” Soleymani mentioned. “Tattoos could be stunning, however they will include undesirable guests that may trigger months of distress.”