Amateur tattoos carry hepatitis C risk

If you're planning on getting a tattoo, make sure it's from a professional and not your friend, says a new report from the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In an analysis of several dozen past studies, CDC researchers found that tattoos from non-professionals appear to carry a risk of the blood-borne liver infection hepatitis C.
That included tattoos done by friends or family, or ones done in prison. On the other hand, there was no evidence that tattoos done by professionals carried a hepatitis C risk.
Hepatitis C is passed through contact with infected blood. In the US, there are roughly 18,000 new infections each year, most of which occur when people who inject heroin and similar drugs share tainted needles or syringes.
But in almost 20 percent of acute hepatitis C infections, the person has no known risk factor, said Dr Rania A. Tohme, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC who led the new study.
Given that - and the popularity of tattoos - there have been concerns that the body art could be a risk factor for hepatitis C. Based on these findings, it's the tattoos from non-pros that consumers should beware, according to Tohme.
"Tattoos and piercings can transmit hepatitis C and other infections if performed under non-sterile conditions," Tohme told Reuters Health in an email. "People should not have tattoos or piercings done by friends or by people who are not trained professionals."
The findings, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, are based on a collection of studies published since 1994. In general, people who had tattoos done by non-professionals faced a hepatitis C risk that was two to four times higher than average. Prison tattoos are a particular concern, Tohme's team writes, because tattooing is so common, and many prisoners may have other risk factors for hepatitis C. And outbreaks of the infection have been linked to tattooing among prisoners. But no U.S. outbreaks have been tied to professional tattoo parlors.
"To this date, there has been no evidence that tattoos and piercings performed in professional parlors in the United States have been implicated in transmission of hepatitis C virus," Tohme said.