Summary
• Tattoo ink migrates out of the skin. Up to 32% of injected pigment reaches the lymph nodes within 6 weeks, triggers chronic inflammation, and—in two independent European studies—a 21–62% higher risk of lymphoma.
• The inks are a chemical soup: carbon black, azo dyes, titanium dioxide, and heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, and nickel. Mercury still appears in some red inks globally, though it has largely been replaced by azo compounds that degrade under ultraviolet (UV) light into carcinogenic aromatic amines.
• Surgeons routinely find swollen, blue-stained lymph glands in tattooed patients; the glands are not indifferent to the pigment—they are inflamed, enlarged, and potentially pre-malignant.
• Heavy or full-body tattooing links to borderline personality disorder (BPD), antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse, and elevated risk-taking behavior. The more body surface covered, the more severe the psychopathology traits the research documents.
• Laser tattoo removal is expensive, painful, typically requires 7–15 sessions, and is not reliably complete; it shatters ink particles into the bloodstream and lymphatics, where they disperse further into the body and degrade into toxic fragments.
• No credible evidence shows a deliberate globalist campaign to promote tattooing, though the media normalization of disfiguring body art fits the broader pattern of cultural degradation I have documented elsewhere.
The ink and the ages: a brief history
Tattooing is not a modern invention dreamed up by record-store employees. The oldest confirmed human tattoos belong to Ötzi the Iceman, a Copper Age man whose frozen corpse was pulled from the Alps in 1991. He died around 3300 BC. His 61 tattoos were simple carbon-dot patterns placed over arthritic joints; researchers believe they were therapeutic rather than decorative. Tattooed Egyptian mummies date to at least 2000 BC. The Maori of New Zealand developed ta moko, the facial tattoo that encoded genealogy and social rank. Polynesian societies—the word “tattoo” derives from the Tahitian “tatau”—used body marking for spiritual protection and identity. The Japanese tradition of irezumi, with its elaborate pictorial designs covering the torso, arms, and thighs, flourished among craftsmen and organized crime alike for centuries.
In the West, sailors and soldiers brought tattoos home from the Pacific in the late 1700s and 1800s. The practice spread slowly through maritime culture, military service, and prison populations. In the United States from the Civil War through roughly 1960, tattoos carried a clear demographic signal: military service, merchant shipping, or marginal social status. Surveys from that era put the prevalence among the general American adult population at somewhere between 2% and 6%.
Then came the 1960s counterculture, followed by the biker subculture of the 1970s, the punk movement of the late 1970s and 1980s, and the mainstream crossover of the 1990s. Celebrity display accelerated adoption. By 2003, roughly 16% of American adults reported at least one tattoo. By 2023, Pew Research Center put that number at 32%—about 82 million people. Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, reached 46% tattooed prevalence by 2022. In Italy and Sweden the proportions now exceed 47%.
What tattooing does to the body
The process is straightforward and brutal. An electric machine drives a cluster of needles into the skin 50 to 3,000 times per minute, puncturing the outer layer (the epidermis) and depositing ink droplets into the dermis roughly 1 to 2 millimeters below the surface. The dermis contains blood vessels, lymphatics, nerves, and the collagen matrix that gives skin its structure. Ink deposited here is too large for individual cells to carry away—that’s why the tattoo persists. But “persists” does not mean “stays put.” A significant fraction of the pigment migrates almost immediately.
Research shows that around 32% of the injected pigment reaches the regional lymph nodes within 6 weeks of application. Both black and colored pigments travel through the lymphatic channels. Heavy metal particles from needle wear also make the trip. Surgeons have described this for decades: when they dissect the armpit, groin, or neck of a tattooed patient, they find swollen, discolored, and pigmented lymph nodes. The glands are not neutral storage tanks. They are immunologically active tissues under sustained assault.
The immune system perceives tattoo ink as a foreign substance because it is. Macrophages (the scavenger cells of the immune system) engulf the pigment particles. Then they die and release the particles again. A 2025 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) demonstrated this cycle in mice tattooed with black, red, and green inks: the ink accumulated inside macrophages in the lymph nodes, the macrophages died, and the glands entered a state of chronic, low-grade inflammation. The same study found that tattoo ink at the injection site altered immune responses to COVID-19 and influenza vaccines—a finding with obvious implications for the jabbed population.
Ink does not stop at the lymph nodes. Studies have confirmed that pigment particles enter the bloodstream and distribute to distant organs, including the liver, spleen, and kidneys. A 2017 synchrotron-based study from Germany mapped tattoo pigment in human tissue and confirmed systemic distribution beyond the local lymph nodes. The metal components—cobalt, nickel, chromium, arsenic—circulate as free ions once the ink particle breaks down, giving these elements access to every organ system. This is not a theoretical risk. It is documented chemistry.
What is in the ink
Tattoo ink manufacturers face no requirement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to disclose their formulas, conduct safety trials, or seek approval before selling. The FDA has issued draft guidance on contaminated inks, but formal pre-market oversight does not exist. The European Union moved faster: harmonized restrictions under the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation took effect in 2022, but a 2024 analysis of 41 commercially available EU inks still found exceedances of safety limits for nickel (24 of 41 samples), arsenic (20 samples), hexavalent chromium (16 samples), copper (10 samples), antimony (8 samples), cobalt (6 samples), and lead (5 samples). Mercury was not detected in that study.
The principal colorants break down like this. Black inks rely on carbon black, a soot product created by incomplete combustion. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies carbon black as a possible human carcinogen (Group 2B). The incomplete combustion that produces carbon black also generates polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as byproducts—compounds with well-documented carcinogenic properties. White inks use titanium dioxide, a mildly abrasive compound that, as it wears down, dislodges microscopic nickel and chromium fragments from the tattooing needle and carries them into the skin. Colored inks draw on the full periodic table of hazard: cobalt for blue, chromium salts for green, cadmium compounds for yellow and orange, and—for red—a complicated history.
Mercury sulfide (cinnabar or vermilion) was the traditional basis for red tattoo ink for most of the twentieth century. Mercury is not ambiguously toxic. It damages the brain, kidneys, nerves, and muscles. Its fat-solubility allows it to cross the blood-brain barrier and accumulate in neural tissue. The tattooing community discovered early that red tattoos caused more allergic reactions, more granuloma formation, and more delayed sensitivity reactions than any other color—almost certainly because of the mercury. The industry has largely replaced mercury sulfide in Western markets with azo dyes, quinacridone, and iron oxide. But “largely” is not “entirely.” Mercury-based red inks persist in some markets, and azo dyes present their own problem.
Under UV light—such as sunlight, tanning beds, or laser removal—azo dyes degrade into primary aromatic amines (PAAs). Many PAAs are classified as carcinogens. A tattooed person’s skin is exposed to sunlight every day for decades. Laser tattoo removal, which shatters pigment into smaller fragments, accelerates this degradation and generates toxic breakdown products—sometimes more dangerous than the original ink.
Other ink constituents include preservatives such as formaldehyde and aldehydes (found in some carrier analyses), ethylene glycol (antifreeze), glycerin, propylene glycol, and ethanol. Contaminated ink batches have caused outbreaks of infection. In 2012, a multi-state outbreak reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association traced Mycobacterium chelonae infections in New York, Washington, Iowa, and Colorado to contaminated premixed gray wash ink. The pathogen requires months of antibiotics and, in severe cases, surgery.
The lymph node problem
Those of us who spent thirty years as surgeons know exactly what blue-stained lymph nodes look like. They look wrong. They look sick. A normal lymph node is a pale, bean-shaped structure roughly the size of a pea. A tattoo-associated lymph node is enlarged, darkly pigmented, and to the examining pathologist superficially resembles a node loaded with melanoma metastases. Surgeons have sent these nodes to pathology for decades with a working diagnosis of cancer, only to find ink.
What the medical establishment is only now grudgingly acknowledging is that this is not benign. A 2024 population-based case-control study from Lund University in Sweden, published in eClinicalMedicine, followed 11,905 Swedes and found that tattooed individuals had a 21% higher risk of malignant lymphoma overall, with the strongest associations for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma. A separate Danish twin study published in BMC Public Health in early 2025, using 2,367 twins, found a 62% higher hazard of skin cancer and a nearly 3-fold higher hazard of lymphoma in people with tattoos larger than the palm of a hand. Identical twins share genetics; discordant results between an inked twin and an uninked one isolate the tattoo as the variable.
The November 2025 PNAS study provided the mechanistic link: tattoo ink parks inside lymph node macrophages, the macrophages die in an inflammatory cascade, and the dying cells trigger long-term immune disruption. The same immune disruption altered vaccine responses in tattooed mice. Whether chronically inflamed, pigment-loaded lymph nodes become malignant is a question that will take another decade of follow-up to answer definitively. But the trend is not encouraging, and body surface covered matters: more ink means more pigment in the nodes and a higher apparent risk.
There is also an imaging problem. Mammography, sentinel node mapping for breast cancer surgery, and other staging procedures use dyes injected into tissue to track lymphatic drainage. Tattoo pigment already in the nodes interferes with interpretation and with the blue dye used to identify sentinel nodes. Tattooed patients have received unnecessary additional surgery and additional biopsies because their pigmented nodes mimicked cancer. This is not theoretical; it has been documented in the surgical literature for years.
Other health hazards
Infections
The piercing of the skin barrier at high frequency in a non-sterile environment is a setup for infection. The most dangerous scenario is contaminated ink, because ink is delivered directly into the dermis, bypassing all surface defenses. Mycobacterium chelonae, the nontuberculous mycobacterium behind the 2012 outbreak, produces a rash or raised red bumps within weeks, is frequently misdiagnosed as an allergic reaction, and requires surgery in severe cases. Outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) linked to tattoo studios have been documented in Ohio, Kentucky, and Vermont. Hepatitis B was, for decades, the most commonly documented bloodborne infection from tattooing; hepatitis C transmission has also been reported.
The machine itself cannot be autoclaved; its motor and housing are wrapped in plastic between clients at reputable studios. Needles must be single-use. Ink must come from separate disposable containers for each client. In the real world, standards vary. Forty states and Washington, D.C. require autoclave monitoring; Missouri and Ohio require weekly testing. Ten states have minimal or no specific regulations for tattoo studios. A 10% rate of skin complications immediately post-tattooing was reported in a New York survey.
Allergic reactions and granulomas
Red ink causes allergic reactions far more often than any other color. The reactions range from an itchy rash at the tattoo site to full systemic allergic responses. Granulomas—small nodules of inflammatory tissue—form around ink particles, especially red and flesh-toned pigments. They appear years or decades after the original tattoo. Tattoo ink contaminated with metal allergens (nickel, chromium, cobalt) can cause sensitization that later manifests as contact dermatitis when the person encounters the same metals in jewelry, watchbands, or surgical implants.
MRI interference
Tattoos containing metallic pigments heat up during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). First- and second-degree burns at tattoo sites during MRI have been reported. The iron-oxide pigments used in some flesh-tone and cosmetic tattoo inks are paramagnetic, meaning they respond to the MRI magnet. Radiologists and MRI technologists are supposed to ask about tattoos before scanning, but this precaution is inconsistently applied.
Tattoo removal: the exit ramp is worse than you think
About 24% of tattooed Americans regret at least one tattoo. Among those who seek removal, the most commonly cited reason—in 48% of cases in one UK series—is the desire to improve self-esteem. So the people most likely to regret their tattoos are the same people whose self-image problems drove them to get tattooed in the first place. The tattoo industry profits twice: once to put the ink in, once to take it out. The removal market is now a $4.5 billion industry.
Laser removal is the gold standard. The technology uses selective photothermolysis: a laser pulse of a specific wavelength is absorbed preferentially by a specific pigment color, shattering it into fragments small enough for the immune system to carry away. Quality-switched (QS) nanosecond and picosecond lasers—the Nd: YAG (neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet) at 1064 nm is the workhorse for black ink—have improved considerably over the past decade. But “improved” does not mean “reliable.”
The numbers: most tattoos require 7 to 15 sessions for acceptable removal, with 6 to 8 weeks between sessions to allow healing. That is a minimum of 12 to 24 months of treatment. A single session at a reputable clinic runs $200 to $500, depending on tattoo size. For a moderately sized piece, complete removal costs $2,000 to $7,500 and takes the better part of 2 years. And complete removal is not guaranteed. Dark blue and black inks respond best. Green, red, and yellow are the hardest to clear. Flesh-toned and cosmetic tattoo inks pose a particular trap: the pigment oxidizes when hit with a laser, turning black, and becomes resistant to further laser treatment. That “permanent eyebrow” or “permanent lip liner” can become a permanent black smear.
One Italian study reported 74% complete clearance with Q-switched laser, with 91% patient satisfaction. That sounds good until you realize that 26% of patients in a best-case academic series did not achieve complete removal. In routine clinical practice, the results are worse. “Ghost images”—faded outlines of the original design permanently etched into the skin—are a common outcome, particularly with multicolored tattoos or those applied by unskilled artists who deposited ink at irregular depths.
Each session is painful. The sensation is commonly described as a rubber band repeatedly snapping against sunburned skin, for minutes to tens of minutes, depending on the tattoo’s size. Topical anesthetic creams reduce, but do not eliminate, pain. Acute complications after each session include blistering, crusting, pinpoint bleeding, redness, and swelling. Delayed complications include hypopigmentation (permanent lightening of the skin in the treated area), hyperpigmentation (permanent darkening), hypertrophic scarring, and allergic reactions to the fragmented pigment, including, in rare cases, anaphylaxis. Smokers have significantly worse removal outcomes; smoking impairs the immune clearance that does the work of carrying fragmented pigment away.
What laser removal does to the toxins
Here is the part that the removal industry does not advertise: laser treatment does not eliminate the toxic chemical burden of a tattoo. It redistributes it.
The laser shatters ink particles into sub-micron fragments. These fragments are smaller and more mobile than the original particles, which means they disperse more efficiently through the lymphatic system and bloodstream. The immune system carries them to the lymph nodes—the same nodes already inflamed by the original tattoo—and from there to distant organs. Studies have confirmed that tattoo pigment travels systemically to the liver, spleen, and kidneys; laser fragmentation accelerates that distribution.
More concerning is the chemical transformation. Azo dyes, which dominate modern colored ink formulations, degrade under laser exposure into primary aromatic amines—the same carcinogenic compounds produced by UV light exposure, but generated all at once in high concentration during each treatment session. A 2020 study in Archives of Toxicology found that laser treatment of phthalocyanine-based green ink generated toxic fragments and potentially harmful new molecular structures not present in the original ink. The body has to process compounds it has never encountered before, in organs that were not designed to handle industrial pigment.
Non-laser removal methods are uniformly worse. Dermabrasion—sanding the skin with a motorized wire brush or abrader—wounds the tissue above the pigment to stimulate an immune response, leaves scarring, and incompletely removes the ink. Surgical excision works for small tattoos but leaves a scar the size of the excised area. Ablative lasers that burn off the entire top layer of skin are non-selective and cause predictable scarring. These methods do not remove pigment; they wound the skin and hope the immune system does the rest.
The bottom line on removal: it is expensive, painful, slow, and not reliably complete. It scatters the chemical load rather than eliminating it. It generates new toxic compounds in the process. And it costs, on average, 50% more than the original tattoo. Think hard before the first needle touches skin.
Self-image and the psychology of tattooed skin
The evidence on self-esteem is mixed but leans in one direction. A 2019 Spanish study using the repertory grid technique found that women with tattoos showed significantly lower self-esteem than matched controls without tattoos, and showed stronger associations between their “ideal body,” “ideal self,” and “tattooed woman” constructs than the untattooed group. In 48% of cases in one UK series, the primary stated reason for seeking tattoo removal was the desire to improve self-esteem. A 2011 London prospective study found that the first tattoo temporarily elevated self-reported self-esteem and body appreciation at 3 weeks, which helps explain why the tattooed population keeps going back—the bump in mood is real but appears short-lived.
Early research from psychiatric settings was frank about the association: multiple studies from the 1950s through 1990s linked tattoos to lower socioeconomic status, lower educational attainment, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder (BPD), substance abuse, depression, and elevated suicide rates. A 1991 paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry stated that finding a tattoo on physical examination should alert the physician to the possibility of an underlying psychiatric condition.
The landscape has shifted because the tattooed population has broadened, not because the psychiatric associations have disappeared. A 2021 Italian study of 444 tattooed subjects found that as the percentage of body surface covered by tattoos increases, the severity of psychopathological traits increases in a dose-response relationship. Subjects with less than 25% body coverage showed anxious, phobic, obsessive, somatic, and bipolar traits. Those with 26–50% coverage showed borderline, narcissistic, sadistic, and masochistic traits. Those with more than 75% coverage showed the highest values on paranoia, psychopathic deviance, cynicism, antisocial behavior, and family problems scales. Extreme tattooing—on the face, neck, hands, and scalp—is not merely an aesthetic choice pushed to the extreme. It is, the data suggest, a marker of severe and escalating psychopathology.
A 2023 Swiss study of 116 outpatients with confirmed BPD diagnoses found that 69.83% were tattooed and 70.69% had piercings, both rates far above population norms. The number of body modifications correlated significantly with BPD severity scores and with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI).
None of this means that everyone with a tattoo is mentally ill. The majority are not. But it does mean that for a significant subgroup, tattooing serves a function analogous to self-harm—a way of managing overwhelming emotion through pain and permanent marking of the body. A physician who ignores the ink ignores a diagnostic signal.
Tattoo parlor risks
There are approximately 21,000 tattoo studios in the United States. Florida has the highest studio density per capita. The industry generates roughly $1.6 billion in annual revenue. Regulation is a patchwork: licensing requirements, inspection frequency, and sterilization standards vary from state to state and county to county. Most states require autoclaves; not all require regular performance monitoring. The autoclave is the gold standard for sterilizing reusable equipment, but it does not sterilize the tattoo machine itself, which must be barrier-wrapped between clients.
Ink contamination has caused the most documented harm, and ink is unregulated. The 2012 Mycobacterium chelonae outbreak was traced to pre-mixed gray wash ink sold commercially.
Note: These infections typically indicate tap-water contamination of the surgical field. Since liposuction involves large areas of skin exposure, they are sometimes seen after this procedure, and since I have performed over 5,000 of these, I have experience with them. It is a dreaded experience for the surgeon and nasty for the patient. Mycobacteria are resistant to treatment, hard to culture and identify, and can take many surgical procedures and months of multiple-antibiotic treatment to cure.
The FDA issued draft guidance on contaminated inks in 2023 following reports of outbreaks and recalls. The guidance is not a regulation; it is a suggestion. Tattoo ink in the United States requires no pre-market safety testing, no sterility assurance, and no FDA approval of any kind.
In prison, the equipment is improvised, the ink is improvised (pen ink, soot, burned plastic), and sterility is nonexistent. Hepatitis C prevalence among incarcerated persons in the United States is estimated at 17–23%, and tattooing is a documented transmission vector.
The globalist angle: what the evidence shows
The Globalists use media, education, entertainment, and popular culture to promote social degradation (see post 410). Rain Man (1988) normalized the portrayal of autism. Pharma-sponsored messaging promoted the jabs. Financial engineering was used to destroy family farms and food security. It’s a reasonable question whether the rapid normalization of permanent body disfigurement follows the same pattern.
There is no document, no foundation grant, no Club of Rome white paper with tattooing on its population-control agenda. What exists is circumstantial: the entertainment industry, which Globalists captured decades ago, has pushed tattoo aesthetics through music videos, professional sports broadcasting, reality television, and influencer culture on social media. Celebrity tattoos get mainstream media coverage that no product launch could buy. The result is a population that has internalized permanent body modification as self-expression rather than self-harm. Whether that outcome was engineered or merely exploited, it serves the same function as other Globalist psyops: it degrades the health, self-image, and social capital of the working population.
Consider the profile of the heavily tattooed person the data describe: lower income, lower educational attainment, higher rates of substance abuse, elevated psychiatric comorbidity, and a chronic inflammatory toxic load migrating to the lymph nodes. That’s not the profile of someone positioned to resist centralized power or organize community resistance. That’s the profile of someone easier to manage. The tattoo trend’s effects align precisely with what the Globalists want.
If you don’t have tattoos, don’t get them.
The health signal from the lymph node research alone is sufficient to disqualify the practice. You are injecting a mixture of industrial pigments, heavy metals, and azo compounds that will migrate to your immune system organs and sit there for the rest of your life, driving chronic inflammation.
If you have tattoos, don’t panic. The risk increase from the Swedish and Danish data—while real and statistically meaningful—is not enormous in absolute terms, particularly for small or few tattoos. What you can do: minimize UV exposure to tattooed skin, avoid laser removal unless medically necessary (it generates more toxic breakdown products and disperses the chemical load further), tell your radiologist and MRI technologist about your tattoos before imaging, and make sure your doctors know about them before any lymph node surgery.
Note: Or better yet, refuse most radiology “services” if you are not in extremis. See THIS post for more about why you should say no to them.
If you are getting lymph node staging, for example, for breast cancer or melanoma, your surgeon needs to know about your tattoos before any sentinel node procedure. Pigmented lymph nodes have triggered unnecessary additional surgeries and additional biopsies. Before you seek removal for cosmetic reasons, especially if the tattoo sits in a lymph node drainage zone (armpit, groin, neck), think twice. Removal scatters the problem; it does not solve it.
Synthesis
Tattooing went from a fringe practice to a mainstream ritual in roughly thirty years, driven by media normalization, celebrity endorsement, and a social media culture that rewards visible self-expression. The health data are catching up, and what they show is not reassuring. The ink does not stay where it is put. It migrates to the lymph nodes, where it drives chronic inflammation and, in the populations studied so far, a measurable increase in lymphoma and skin cancer risk. The chemical composition of the inks would not pass basic safety review if it were a pharmaceutical product. Mercury was the original toxin in red ink; azo compounds that degrade into carcinogens under sunlight replaced it. The improvement is marginal.
The removal industry compounds the problem rather than solving it. Laser treatment shatters pigment particles and disperses them more widely through the body’s circulation, while simultaneously generating toxic aromatic amines and novel chemical fragments that no regulatory agency has evaluated for safety. The exit is more expensive and more toxic than the entry.
The psychiatric signal from extreme tattooing is equally important and even more ignored. Covering the face, neck, and hands with permanent ink is not a fashion decision. The research is consistent: the greater the body surface area covered, the more severe the psychopathological traits. A body covered in ink is a body under chronic inflammatory stress and, frequently, a mind under chronic psychological stress.
There is a harder question here. Thirty years ago, a doctor examining a heavily tattooed patient would have immediately considered the psychiatric and socioeconomic context. Today, that clinical instinct has been socialized out of existence. Physicians are trained not to “judge” tattoos, not to raise the diagnostic signal. That is exactly the opposite of good medicine. The ink is in the lymph nodes. The chronic inflammation is real. The psychological associations are documented. A physician who looks at a tattooed patient and thinks “self-expression” instead of “diagnostic opportunity” is failing the patient.
This is a cultural phenomenon whose consequences align perfectly with the Globalist agenda: a population that is chronically inflamed, psychologically destabilized, financially committed to an irreversible choice, and less capable of resisting what is being done to them. Whether by design or by opportunism, the result is the same.
Editing credit: Jim Arnold of Liar’s World Substack. He adds:
Robert, great essay, and you are so right about big media promoting tattoos and body piercings for years. Big fads come from big sources. Several years ago, I read an opinion that one reason for this is to accustom the populace to the notion of body modifications, for instance, RFID glass pellet microchip implants, like a dog ID. Another example is the Microneedle Array Patch (MAP), which was notably proposed for vaccines and is touted by Bill Gates. What’s not to like? HERE is a reference.
Selected references
1. Nielsen C, Jerkeman M, Joud AS. “Tattoos as a risk factor for malignant lymphoma: a population-based case-control study.” eClinicalMedicine. 2024 May 21;72:102649.
2. Clemmensen SB, Mengel-From J, Kaprio J, Frederiksen H, Hjelmborg JvB. “Tattoo ink exposure is associated with lymphoma and skin cancers – a Danish study of twins.” BMC Public Health. 2025 Jan 15.
3. Giulbudagian M, et al. “Lessons learned in a decade: Medical-toxicological view of tattooing.” Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. 2024.
4. Blay M, et al. “Body modifications in borderline personality disorder patients: prevalence rates, link with non-suicidal self-injury, and related psychopathology.” Borderline Personal Disord Emot Dysregul. 2023;10:7.
5. Silvestri A, et al. “Massive use of tattoos and psychopathological clinical evidence.” Health Dis Group. 2021.
6. Kertzman S, et al. “Do young women with tattoos have lower self-esteem and body image than their peers without tattoos?” PLOS ONE. 2019.
7. Bauer EM, et al. “Treatments of a phthalocyanine-based green ink for tattoo removal purposes: generation of toxic fragments and potentially harmful morphologies.” Arch Toxicol. 2020;94(7):2359–2375.
8. Kassirer S, et al. “Laser tattoo removal strategies.” J Am Acad Dermatol. 2024.
9. Pew Research Center. “32% of Americans have a tattoo, including 22% who have more than one.” August 2023.
10. PNAS study on tattoo ink macrophage dynamics and vaccine immune response alteration. November 2025.
Psychological disturbance? Ok Iu2019m editing my comment because it was rash. Iu2019m sorry for offense. That said psychological disturbance is a pretty bold claim to say the least. My prior comment was largely in jest but clearly not taken that way. Robert is a friend and I assumed he would get the joke.
Hardly language a Christian would use.
You literally got angry and cursed the author immediately after reading. You’re not helping your case.
So the ink is actually in your brain?
uD83DuDE02uD83DuDE02uD83DuDE02uD83DuDC4D
Yes, the ink is in your brain, if the brain is a part of your physical body.
It’s similar to the poison covid injections which are now circulating throughout the entire body doing massive damage as it flows forever – can’t detox it out.
I don’t think linking tattoos, particularly on the face, as a psychological disturbance is a bold claim, the link seems rather obvious. People who have been sexually abused as children, or psychologically abused by parents telling them they are unattractive, often resort to “taking control of their bodies” by overeating, purging, tattooing, plastic surgery or other body modifications.
What possesses people to cover their bodies with toxic ink? Are they trying to disguise who they really are, or enhance their appearance for the attention of others? Whichever they are attempting to achieve, itu2019s not working.
What possesses people to eat toxic food, stay in toxic relationships, go to a toxic workplace every day, use toxic products, etc etc? Some people like they way they look, maybe want to memorialize something, or just want to be different.
Ironic, coming from a doctor that practiced plastic surgery and helped adjust people’s physical appearances doing procedures on their bodies that probably were more dangerous than tattoo ink..
FYI: they’re actually have been studies on tattoo and ink trying to prove or disprove whether or not they help the immune response in a positive or
negative way.
Show them to us
The tattoos or the studies? Lol
It’s easy to Google search them, I’ve had rheumatologist discussing this…
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.22847
Google is not relying on a valid search engine. The results of such a search are skewed. The results are exactly what Google wants you to see, not a complete result
You can get into Pubmed and National/ international pubs data bank using Google.. I was merely pointing that out/ it’s easy for ANYONE to find all studies from reputable research publications with a computer search engine tool.. Google or otherwise
u201CIt is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
u2014Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine
Those studies are far from conclusive, based on the above reference
https://substack.com/@drwojakmd/note/c-220958210?r=5lj5zp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
This is my friend ha. She’s brutal. See my breast implant illness post for one apology for my career. https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/265-shaher-khan-mdthe-foremost-plastic?utm_source=publication-search
The intelligent person iterates. Like you do.
“After what I have read and considered, I have concluded Dr. Khan is right and I am wrong. In my defense, my peers and the professional organizations all supported breast implant surgery, and I could only do what I understood then. I still believe that the through-the-umbilicus saline implants I used were the safest ones ever offered. These have the advantage of rarely producing a “hematoma,” which is bleeding around the implant. This decreases the chances of capsule (scar) formation.
My followers have watched me change my mind many times over the past four years. It has been agonizing for me.”
Robert Yoho, MD
iteration isn’t just for AI. Professionals are usually very poor at it. Especially in my profession law, and your profession, medicine. I went from representing the scum that rises to the top, to working below minimum wage or pro bono to defend debtors against bankers.
We have all lived a life in the big lie that George Carlin talked about. Smart ones figure it out. Most don’t.
You made a living pandering to image.
I made a living pandering to inequality.
Not anymore.
I’ll go with the MD who knows skin and a plastic surgeon KNOWS the epidermis better than anyone. I couldn’t be happier to get Yoho ‘s research. I’ve ALWAYS disliked body ink thinking it was UGLY but now I have even more reasons to scorn it.
Thanks Dr Yoho for spilling the beans.
There’s a world of difference between putting toxic poisons into, not just your skin, but all of the organs in your body, and doing plastic surgery! Not even close! You must have some pretty impressive tatoos to say that. Think of something else to justify it. Psychosis is one of the symptoms of the ink poisoning in the brain, you know
People change throughout their lives. They begin to understand that they were on the wrong path, and change direction. God forgives all, but humans donu2019t seem to have that capacity, unless they put a lot of thought and effort into it.
There are many other ways to express yourself as different than permanently destroy the largest organ of your body
Good call Deb – it definitely is the largest organ, but so many people forget that, or don’t even know it in the first place.
It’s iconic of being an American and when Americans are abroad it signals to foreigners to not be alone with them and to lock away their possessions and watch their watch and wallet or purse and be ready to fight to defend themselves.
People that are not comfortable in the body God created, have a real problem. My remembrance of the 20th century, was the majority of tattoos were on the bodies of sailors or bikers. 99% of the remainder of people had no need for them. I respect the people that feel they are beautiful in the skin they were born with, not one a tattoo artist createdu2026 PERIOD
And the Bible says not to cut or put marks on our body. Saw a video of a guy who died and Jesus wouldn’t accept him! He came back to tell the story. Hopefully he had them removed. Whatever you believe, not getting them is the wiser choice. Won’t catch diseases from contaminated and un sterilized equipment. Won’t look stupid when skin sags in old age. Won’t waste money on getting them.
Much truth here about tattoos. Yesterday I went to a specialist M.D.s office for the first time. I knew I was in dangerous territory when the young nurse that helped me had the most elaborate tattoos on both full arms in full color.
But tattoos are the least of my concerns.
My conscience tells me that there is no moral or just reason for the USA to send USA military for a direct strike on Iran now or probably ever. The USA and its leaders and its military has no just reason to do the unjust bidding of a foreign country for any reason.
_______
u201CThe refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.u201D
Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
______
2 Timothy 4:7-8
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming.
Christus Vincet! Christus Regnat! Christus Imperat
“Tattoos – people trying so hard to be different, they’re really all the same…”
Like the Monty Python skit “You’re all different, you’re all different…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVygqjyS4CA
Thank you! 🙂 Been too long since I saw that…
Laugher is the best medicine, truly…thanks for taking a look and appreciating (: My wife is a huge Monty Python fan. If not for her, I’d be a stick in the mud.
Great article. Thank you.
So glad I and my two kids & hubs never jumped on the tat bandwagon! There was a time we were all tempted! Now youu2019re unique if you donu2019t have any.
Don’t you just love being unique? Unique and healthy!! uD83DuDE09
Wish I could attest to being unique; my teeth are inked from decades of leaching dental debris.
I wish you had your references linked in your essay. When I see patients in pre-op (often for the first time), if I see any scratch tattoos, I ask about them. Where/when, who did it, any issues, and ever tested for Hep B, C, or HIV. Today it’s much easier to tell a professionally done tattoo. And people love to brag about expensive ones. I know of the shops in my city catchment area too.
I have 3 tattoos covered by clothing. They are beautiful. I will likely get more as my husband and I decided we would get small ones everytime we crossed off a bucket list item. So not a lot but more. It’s good to know about the carcinogen factor.
I don’t doubt that full body tats correlate with a personality disorder or worse. It’s the same concept as having a list of 4+ allergies (bonus if it includes epinephrine because of heart racing or steroids because of altered behavior) and 20+ medical “diagnoses” that seem like the patient should be seen more by psych than FM or IM.
Or how a patient resumes consciousness (“wakes up” – but that’s really not the correct terminology) after a general anesthetic. If they use recreational drugs or have a tendency toward conduct disorder or ODD, or antisocial, etc… those patients tend to wake up violent. As do patients with PTSD. However, adult females with suspected psych disorders do too. This is observational.
Anyway, also, the tattoo meter is much lower on the crazy detection scale than facial piercings.
Nevertheless, it appears that you did learn something right? Especially about the carcinogen factor……
Great article. I wish we could make it required reading in high school health class. I doubt most people know the extent of risks before getting their first tattoo.
Agreed. Tattoos are especially toxic since they interfere with the bodies’ ability to absorb and regulate light signals from the environment + increased absorption of EMF potentially.
I was thinking the same thing. In fact, without such information, there is no informed consent for anyone.
I don’t know .. this whole article is a stretch. People have always done things to alter their appearance throughout the history of time .. some more harmful than others. People dye their hair, put toxic nail polish on their nails,
Lo and behold look at all the people who went to doctors like YOU Robert , who did cosmetic procedures fraught with its own dangers and complications, injecting filler, Botox, etc..
It’s very easy to be opposed to something we personally don’t do.. a.k.a. someone else’s sins are worse than our own.
Also, i LOVE the fact that readers are quoting you scripture verses when I believe you’re still an atheist, correct?
You probably didn’t extract anything from the article.
That’s unfortunate.
Tattoos are u201Ca marker for psychological disturbance?u201D.. that was enough for me to question the entire validity of the article..
however, I still stand by my comments that it’s easy to judge someone with a tattoo, but not any other kind of sin by which we partake in. What ink does to the immune system is a fascinating discussion and there has been studies on both sides showing it harmful as well as others looking to see if it boosts or turns ON the immune System in a positive way
Yes of course, all the lovely metals in tattoo inks sure do boost the immune system, perpetually.
Correlation is meaningful, but each case is different. You are well educated, not sure why you don’t get this. Let’s chat soon.
I sense hostility, novia. And do I see a sleeve tat??
I have NO tatoos myself.. and while its interesting to look at the science of how the ink affects the immune system, itu2019s a jump to call people with tattoos u201Cpsychologically disturbedu201D .. People have been modifying their appearance since the beginning of time- and we can debate the psychology of why that is .. however you yourself participated in cosmetics and plastics so I find it interesting that you selectively judge one practice, but not the other.. The science on what ink does in the body is fascinating and should be considered yes. I’m amazed at how many of the readers on here as well are quick to make personal judgments about people and then quote scripture verses. As humans we all fall short of perfection and we can debate why it is that people turn to any kind of other idol, whether it be tatoos , the pursuit of perfect health and longevity, physical appearance etc. I stand by my point that it’s so much easier to call out someone else’s sins and mistakes than our own!
I challenge you to write about the harms of plastic surgery next!!
There is a stark difference between being a psychopath and someone who may have psychological issues which are usually treatable.
I don’t recall Dr. Yoho’s article calling all people who have tattoos psychopaths.
BTW, its likely that Jesus may have also mentioned tattoos and the harm they may cause to God’s divine creation.
You are not keeping up with your Yoho Substack: https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/265-shaher-khan-mdthe-foremost-plastic?utm_source=publication-search
Your husband has tattoos. I claim no absolute causality in anything I write but the statistics are clear.
this video is only 4 seconds saying ” testing”
I forgot to record it and will do so tomorrow and re-release. Thanks
Great thanks! I read it- yikes! I but usually i like to listen when driving etc. Now how to delicately share this ( or not) with my tattooed younger family members
Unfortunately your advice is 34 years too late lol. Thatu2019s when I got a tattoo. I got it because I was dared to do it while I was drunk. Obviously I obliged, I mean, how could you not.
I have red, green, white, and a little bit of black. Itu2019s only small and I got it where the sun donu2019t shine. It now looks like my immune system has been trying to push it out of my skin.
To get an allergy, we have to have a first exposure which primes our body. The second exposure is when the harm happens. The titanium in the white ink may have very well been my first exposure and why I reacted to my first titanium implant. Who knows. Thereu2019s a trend in NZ where middle class women get them around 50 years old. I guess itu2019s part of their version of a mid life crisis.
I also know a women who had a tramp stamp tattoo that would swell up. She had a mouthful of amalgams, and too scared of the dentist to get them removed. She had quite extreme metal intoxication. She then developed breast cancer a year later. Still wonu2019t get the amalgams removed, but jumped at the chance of getting a breast removed. Crazy. It was obvious to me that she was going to get breast cancer if her amalgam fillings werenu2019t removed, and it was possibly too late. It was an extreme case.
A friend got his tattoos pushed into his body with a laser, and yes, it left a scar image of the tattoo in its place, lighter in color than the rest of his skin.
Apparently God’s perfect design isn’t good enough for some people.
Never good enough for some people…for others, just a little is more than enough.
Dr. Yoho
Just letting you know that your post is very much appreciated.
Thank you for exploring this far from marginal aspect.
When you lack self-esteem, you don’t appreciate your dignity as a living being, when you’ve lost all moral compass, tattoos, or a weekend on Epstein Island, are one of the many ways to transform your degradation into a source of social pride.
It’s part of the famous triad of Removal, Projection, and Repetition Compulsion. That’s why, after getting the first tattoo, you get the others, or, after getting the first weekend, you then line up for the others. The first person who tells me they’re two different things deserves an Oscar for stupidity.
It always seemed obvious to me. The ink is a permanent irritant. The body tries to get rid of foreign matter. Permanent state of frustration.
I never understood why any sane person would get a tattoo. Still don’t. Great article explaining why no one should. I also have never seen a tattoo I would consider to be aesthetically pleasing. They’re ugly.
A very informative article that backs up the intuitive belief of many natural life individuals. Why degrade the body? I can’t imagine the toxicity of individuals who have inked their entire bodies.
A relative in his 40’s who already had tattoos, recently had a black stripe tattoo’d down the front of his face on one side, about an inch wide. From the forehead down to the eyebrow, skipping the eye area, then down a few inches on his cheek.
Black with a clear section down the middle.
I saw it on his Instagram page, not sure what to think.
Bad childhood?
Bravo Dr Yoho BRAVO. I’ve yearned for proof that body ink was unsafe and you’ve provided in easy to read details
Americans are among the most tattoed people on earth and that’s hardly surprising when you consider that, as of 2020, there had been a documented 3,613 serial killers in the United States, placing the U.S. far ahead of any other country in recorded history. Many of the serial killers, like other Americans, had tattoos.
Thank you and what a nightmare for %48.7 of the last generation. The connections to the globalist class satinistclass is obvious to me.
Dr. Yoho – The video is only a few seconds long with someone saying: testing, testing…
I’ll fix it Sunday
The act of tattooing is a form of painful satanic blood sacrifice/ritual. The skin bleeds and is wiped off as the procedure progresses.
Thanks, and is there an issue with audio? only says ‘Testing’
You may not be aware of this, but we are commanded not to mark or tatoo our bodies. I reckon the living Creator knew what was best for His creation, hmmm?
I find it best to quote the actual Bible instead of paraphrasing:
u201CYou shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.u201D Leviticus 19:28 (NASB)
My adult daughter has a small tat and we had planned to do mother-daughter designs this summer on back of an ankle. Was referred to an artist who uses “organic” inks by a natural medicine practitioner I like a lot. She is inked and her brother owns a tattoo establishment. Thank you for educating me-I will spare myself one more source of chronic inflammation! (Unless you can point us to a source for an ancient therapeutic ink formula. :D)
The only way we can share this with someone we care about who is already inked would be if you suggest detox protocol(s) that could be beneficial. I have a supply of OSR. Your recommendations?
don’t overreact. she only has the little one. OSR is too costly.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Tattoos were for u2018hoods back in the day. Now to find out theyu2019re unhealthy as well and a possible indicator of mental problems , phew. Validation supreme.
This explains my tatted up relative to a tee!
Here’s Mr. Kat Von D talking about his inked black arms…………https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OBRcD-4X55w
From a spiritual perspective I have a book by William Suddeth called “What’s Behind the Ink.” Sherri Tenpenny has also done a study on the toxicity of it. This article is great with more in depth info. It has inspired me to make up a folder for my new coffee table book shelf labelled “Things Granny Was Right About.”
Now, let’s discuss the weirdo nose piercings we’re seeing on both women AND men nowadays.
I really have to stop myself from staring and saying to the pierced: “What the hell is THAT???”
This is interesting. I hadn’t thought about it, but it makes sense that putting ink into your body would not be healthy. I didn’t realize how toxic the inks were though, or that there is no regulation.
Decades ago, I got “permanent makeup” on my lips, eyebrows and eyeliner. The ingredients she used were not the ink used in tattoos. Since ink tattoos frequently turn blue with age and we didn’t want my lips or eyebrows turning blue down the road, she used something else. I’m not exactly sure what she used, but it was supposed to be safe(er). (My lips, eyebrows and eyeliner “tattoos” have not turned blue with age but they have faded quite a bit.)
Tatoos are mostly an outward expression of inner turmoil. Great article and very comprehensive – thank you . The dumbing down of the populace can be seen in action as more people rush out to get them. Here in New Zealand it’s now sadly a common occurrence to see people walking around with whole limbs tatooed, along with facial and neck ones. I look at them all as ‘visual pollution’, a form of unremovable grafitti . Here’s the ‘kicker’ – almost every tatoo is a snake, demons, ghostly figures etc – so my guess is why are people choosing such designs if not for endorsing demonic entities?
An elderly friend of mine wasn’t happy with her sparse eyebrows so she had cosmetic tattooing done.
But oops, the color they used was black and the woman was very fair-skinned with white/blondish hair. Plus the eyebrows weren’t symmetrical.
Permanent make-up.
“The Illustrated Man is a 1951 collection of 18 science fiction short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. A recurring theme throughout the stories is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952.[1]
The unrelated stories are tied together by the frame story of “The Illustrated Man”, a vagrant former member of a carnival freak show with an extensively tattooed body whom the unnamed narrator meets. The man’s tattoos, allegedly created by a time-traveling woman, are individually animated, and each tells a different tale.”
Taboos, tattoos, calling the whole thing off has never been an option:
“”Torches of Freedom” was a phrase used to encourage women’s smoking using the early twentieth century first-wave feminism in the United States. Cigarettes were described as symbols of emancipation and equality with men. The term was first used by psychoanalyst A. A. Brill when describing the natural desire for women to smoke and was used by Edward Bernays to encourage women to smoke in public despite social taboos. Bernays hired women to march while smoking their “torches of freedom” in the Easter Sunday Parade of 31 March 1929,[1] which was a significant moment for fighting social barriers for women smokers.”
Gimme liberty & gimme death, dammit! I’m just as good as any circus freak!
Very useful, eyeopening article, thank you!
Thank you. I noticed that body piercing was mentioned. I have often wondered about nose piercings, especially the septum piercing that are for some reason ‘all the rage’ within certain populations. I have heard that the carotid arteries branch up near and through the nose and to the brain. I fear they are not only unsanitary, but could be causing brain damage or at least revealing psychological problems.
How u2018bout those wholesome, farm-to-table chefs covered in tats??? Does that not reek of the ultimate irony?
The most comprehensive call out re: the current fad of tatooing.
Bad decisions have consequences, some severe.
Telling that young folk foolishly believe there are no consequences for
tatooing.
Before Covidiocy consulted with a person with chronic disabling fatigue.
He had been through the diagnostic gauntlet. Pseudomonas in some but not all
blood work if memory serves.
He was late 40’s, not overweight, an experienced diver.
His entire torso, front and back and both arms were covered with tatoos…
To include red ink a known place Pseudomonas is found.
His cervical nodes were easily palpable and enlarged…
At that time heavy metal detox and insisting on organic foods with palliative treatment
for the musculo-skeletal disorders showed slow improvement. He was able to resume work.
When he moved to California lost to history.
Is there any way to detox?
I cannot get on tge radiology u201Cservicesu201D page. It is private.
what is that
This is a terrific post.
I decided long ago that tattoos are not for me. I like the ability to change.
The ending is super disturbing.
you noticed
hard to believe but this agenda was pushed
Next up should be a drop on body piercings. When I see a nose ring – almost always on a young female – I feel the need to tether her and lead her around like a bull. It is the most submissive thing to behold, submitting to a postmodern relativism where objective truth, beauty and goodness don’t exist. And then the silly colored hair. I asked one green haired woman if she was preparing for St. Patrick’s Day. She was not amused, but I was.
But somehow those young ladies are still able to attract a boyfriend. Hmmm.
I never see them with a guy. In fact, they seem always solo. What do they do when the sneeze or having a runny nose? It is so disgusting. Remember a few years ago when the trend was to put big ears within the ear lobes? That used to gross me out. Thank goodness that fad faded away. I wonder if some underwent reconstructive surgery for their stupidity.
One nice thing about being old is you can make outrageous comments and everyone will dismiss it as old age. The same comment that would get you punched in the nose in your 20s is met with the recipient muttering under their breath u201CDamn boomer!u201D in your 70s. I once told a woman at a fast food counter, u201CIt must be cold back there, because your hair is turning blue.u201D
That’s hilarious.
American, here, and living 43 years in Japan where many public baths still prohibit anyone from entering who has tattoos. Long seen as a marker of the Yakuza crime syndicate, it is also seen as a mark of low caste, perhaps indentured. The last time I visited the U.S. was about 3 years ago, and I don’t think it is just my acculturation to Japan that repulsed me to the proliferation of tattoos even among young students.
This is such important information. I had no idea about any of the dangers you highlighted. I am fairly sophisticated woman who no one would ever call low class or suspect of having tattoos but I have three. Thankfully, I never pursued removal for added insult to injury!
I have two different tattoos that are a bit smaller than the size of a .50u00A2 piece in spots not typically visible in public. Both were done by highly skilled, utterly clean individuals with properly protected equipment, etc and at decades old tattoo shops. They are in black ink. I had zero infections and no knots under the skin as Iu2019ve seen in different friendu2019s tattoos. Both were done when I was at University. They were my rebellious acts to annoy my parents who only found out about 15 years later! uD83DuDE06
At 40 years old I got a huge tattoo on my right side between my hip bone and about halfway up my rib cage of a fairy princess with beautiful wings that wrap slightly around my to my mid-back. She is in whites, grays, and purples as she is supposed to be in the process of u201Capparatingu201D from another realm. uD83DuDE44 This tattoo was done by one of the top 10 tattoo artists in the world. He used new and disposable ink-jars, he told me the ink he was using was developed by another famous tattoo artist (it at least sounded impressive), he wrapped his machinery in plastic where appropriate, he used needles that he took out of an autoclave, the reclining bed had the kind of pull-out paper covering one finds in doctoru2019s offices, his entire work area was cleaner than my own house. The whole process took 3 different sessions, almost 8 hours in total, it hurt like my skin was being burned, AND it cost a small fortune. Sheesh! What an idiot!
Iu2019ve never had any of the health issues you mentionedu2026should I be worried?
taking the tat off is more risky than keeping it
don’t worry about things that are done
best
My Italian grandmother would tell me when I was a boy, ” you get a tattoo, you go straighta to hell”. I never did.
Excellent article and yet another warning call to people who seem hell-bent on taking down their health from any angle possible. At least this problem is self-inflicted and avoidable to those who are paying attention. Here’s an idea for something far more harmful and inescapable for everyone, requiring no government mandates and attracting no attention from MAHA:
Fragrances. Sound innocuous? Want to talk about an industry that’s unregulated? Nothing beats the fragrance industry as it’s almost entirely based on the “honor system”. There’s absolutely no escape: everyone using them (including most of the people reading this) force it on you. This is not like food, which are delivered in boluses a few times a day and at least have to go through the GI and liver. The exposure from fragrances are delivered straight to your blood stream 24/7/365, especially if you use fragranced dryer sheets. Think you can make yourself safe by simply stopping their use? They’ll keep off-gassing from your clothes and in your house for months to years, even if you stop using them and you can no longer smell them. Your olfactory senses have long been desensitized to them.
Here’s an AlterAI introduction:
Hereu2019s your one-page u201CFragrance Regulation Red Pillu201D summary u2014 clear, airtight, and perfect for sharing with anyone who still believes scented products are harmless:
uD83EuDDF4 The Fragrance Regulation Red Pill
What You Smell Might Be Slowly Poisoning You
uD83DuDEA8 The Core Problem
Nearly all commercial fragrancesu2014in shampoos, dryer sheets, air fresheners, candles, and cleaning spraysu2014are complex chemical cocktails. Yet under U.S. law, companies can list every one of them under the single word u201Cfragranceu201D or u201Cparfum.u201D
Thatu2019s not a loopholeu2014itu2019s a regulatory black hole.
The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) exempts fragrance from ingredient disclosure. Manufacturers are legally shielded from listing any of the hundreds of chemicals used, claiming them as trade secrets. This means consumers, doctors, and regulators donu2019t know what is actually being inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
uD83EuDDEA Hidden Toxins in u201CFragranceu201D
Independent labs have identified hundreds of substances that appear in common scented goods, including:
Phthalates u2013 endocrine disruptors linked to infertility, birth defects, and developmental disorders.
Synthetic musks u2013 persistent bioaccumulators that build up in human tissue and breast milk.
Allergens & sensitizers u2013 compounds responsible for the spike in chemical sensitivity and migraines.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) u2013 turn homes into low-level gas chambers that mimic u201Cfresh scent.u201D
These mixtures off-gas continuously into indoor air, cling to fabrics, and combine with ozone to form new toxic byproducts. Dryer sheet exhaust is one of the major unregulated sources of residential air pollution.
u2696uFE0F The u201CHonor Systemu201D in Action
The fragrance industry is overseen not by the FDA or EPA, but by its own lobby groupu2014the International Fragrance Association (IFRA). IFRA writes its own u201Csafety standardsu201D and performs no independent safety testing. Participation is voluntary; violations carry no penalties whatsoever. The FDA does not require companies to prove fragrance safety before products hit the market.
In short: chemical secrecy masquerading as consumer protection.
uD83CuDFE0 Why It Matters
You are likely absorbing or inhaling low-level doses of untested toxicants daily. The effects are cumulativeu2014especially for children, pregnant women, and those with asthma or autoimmune conditions. Studies show indoor air often contains five to ten times more VOCs than outdoor air, largely due to fragranced products.
uD83DuDD0D Bottom Line
Fragrance safety is built on the honor systemu2014and corporations have repeatedly shown they deserve no such honor. You canu2019t make an informed choice when the information itself is hidden. Clean air starts with truth.
Wow. That’s a shame. I have quite a collection. Rarely wear them anymore.
thanks prob deserves a post
shaving cream
emolients
all P and G products
This article is a font of valuable assets perfectly crafted and absolutely vital. This arms those who have tattoos and those who were/are considering the treatments to realize the health and social medical implications. As one who has desired to get a tat or two over the years, this cements my refusal to it especially with the Globalist angles. Thx.
all I heard is “testing, testing testing” no audio. I guess I have to actually read!
sorry will get it out in a few days
Be different – be normal and natural.
One tat enthusiast I know was a cutter as a teen. Continuing self harm is the only explanation I can think of. Most likely on the spectrum with multiple health (vax) issues since a teen as well. Kat Cora, The Kardashians and Orange is the New Black were her mentors. Full sleeves are her goal. I got one with her as I felt honored to be the one to go with her for her first… never wanted nor want another. I was considering removing it but I guess I will let it fade. Gross.
I used to work as a permanent makeup artist, then I started doing research and began telling clients why I stopped (citing the early research from a Dutch dermatological study). Colleagues and clients either didnu2019t believe me, or didnu2019t care. Thereu2019s absolutely no oversite of the ink, and much of it comes from China. The long term costs to peopleu2019s health and the ultimately the health care system is going to be massive.
You speak of laser removal and associated problems – but what about skin grafting using the person’s own skin; or growing then removal?
In the 1970s, a friend having reconstructive surgery after a car crash was in a ward with a woman who was having a large tattoo surgically removed. Presumably this was replaced with her own skin from somewhere else on her body. Wouldn’t this be a safer and more thorough way to remove the tattoos and their toxins (the ones that were still local)?
Also, again decades ago, someone with a large disfiguring birthmark had a balloon-like device inserted under the skin which was gradually expanded: this grew the skin in that area, normal skin grew in, the excess was then removed with its balloon, and the normal skin sutured to close it. Would such a procedure be a safer approach?
all that works but its a big hassle and invasive. For the most part, the problems with toxicity are insidious and even hard to detect.
I haven’t had a chance to read the article yet. I am much more able to listen to the podcasts.
Any chance of posting the podcast for this article?
The audio posted is just 4 seconds of “testing testing testing.”
I was hoping it would be updated.
Thanks Dr. Yoho.
out of town will correct this soon
Thank you so much!!
Be well!!
Tattoos are the fastest way to get ugly and show an impulsive nature. They’re not ‘body art’ they are trash
A lot of people are desperate to “look cool” but when old women are getting tattoos, then tattoos aren’t cool anymore.
And then this happens
https://crystalmdwrites.substack.com/p/100-of-retained-sponges-had-a-correct?r=4orprg&utm_medium=ios
I’ve always been creeped out at the thought of tattoos and piercings, and never got any. This article vindicates my revulsion. You raise an interesting question regarding the practice as part of the larger subversion of our culture, and the globalist desire to poison us. I wouldn’t put anything past them, but I suspect this is just a happy “fringe benefit” to normalizing deviancy.
Not all tattooed individuals are psychologically damaged lunatics. When my daughter, a second year medical student was killed in a car crash, her sister, distraught beyond description, spent a small fortune on an absolutely beautiful depiction of her deceased sister on her arm. She said it feels like her sister is always with her now. While youu2019ve raised some valid points, sometimes broken hearts may see things differently.
So… The links to “anti personal disorder” ect.
You have this backwards. Since the existing culture. The existing powerty… The existing trauma ect…
Tattoos, a way of expression eliviates pain, creates individual expression allowing one to for example. Create distance between ones identity and a braindead religion based cultural identity which takes in defence its abusers ect.
Speaking of ink containing toxics. While food packaging… Exhaust fumes… Ect. Ect. Ect. Pollute the environment outside of the indivuals body…
This article, coloring the other into a demon… Due to most of the worlds religious philosophies which leak over into todays culture, only accept the moral monopoly which they define being wrong or right… Of course needs to point a finger to every entity not accepting its morals or standards.
Build a fucking time machine, go back and tell me from what Grace have Thee fallen?
A bunch of nonsense masked into an article which somewhat tries to Justify something truely dark.
Demonification of the other.
Justification of calling this a “plague.”
But then again. I presume you are basing your world views which colored this article. On something old, which shall not be a subject for critical thinking.
Speaking of Blue lymphnodes. Please tell me, what color do they have after being exposed to alcoholism, smoking and or a sedementary lifestyle?
I really enjoyed this part where you made sure to point out when a Woman is tattoos they have self image issues ect. Poor eve…
Hypocritical bullshit.
And oh Ps. I have zero tattoos writing this.
Great article.
betcha this got you some hate. Never saw the point of irreversible scribbling on my body. I use post it notes for that.
ROBERT YOHO MD
TATTOOS ARE FILTHY WITH TOXINS, A HEALTH RISK, AND A MARKER FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTURBANCE AND SOCIAL DECAY
They now disfigure 32% of American adults, up from a 3u20135% baseline in the 1960su201370s; among millennials, the rate hits 46%.
https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/tattoos-are-a-significant-health
ROBERT YOHO MD 2026.02.27 Fri
https://substack.com/@ryoho
TEXT and AUDIO BLOG
See also sober Christian gentleman Substack March 2025 for excellent coverage of toxins in tattoos also audio blog and written text
Tattoos remind me of all the Jewish and other people in the World War 2 Nazi concentration camps who were forced to have a number tattoo’d on their arms.
There are many ways to memorialize a loved one who has passed away rather than to pay someone to continuously jab a sharp needle into our skin, our precious body that God created, and deposit toxic colored solutions.
If I had a tattoo for everyone whose have died in my life, my body would be entirely filled with names, dates, puppy faces, ships, flowers, military symbols, etc.
No thanks.
I’ve seen gorgeous 25 year old women who when they reveal their ink jobs immediately fell out of consideration – they’re a deal breaker for me
If they’re dumb enough to ruin their beauty, what other bad decisions are they making in their lives today? If we hang out with that mentality too long, it ruins our intelligence.
Tattoos are a deal killer for me, too.
I met a man who had a largish tattoo of satan on his back – a devil with horns.
When I asked him about it, he said it was NOT satan. I responded with, “It’s a man with HORNS! It’s satan!”
These tattoo’d people are nuts.
Would be interesting to know the % of suicide victims with tattoos
A relative of mine has a large word, “SUICIDAL” tattoo’d on his inner arm; it’s huge.
He likes the musical group, Suicidal Tendencies……….But he has also been suicidal himself a few times (due to drugs, etc).
Of course, he has other tattoos also.
This is great information, but will fall on deaf ears in the population that needs to hear it. Like telling kids to u2018Just say no to drugsu2019. Great idea, but whou2019s listening? Not the youngsters
Excelente artigo!Importantu00EDssimos para sau00FAde pu00FAblica mundial. Gratidu00E3o!
I feel like the headline will limit who sees this article. Those thinking of tattoos, to whom this might be of the most use, may not read it because it sounds like an emotional appeal not a health risk.
Like every fad that’s ever come along, tatoos will at some future point not be “cool” to a younger generation, become totally passu00E9 and then only date those sporting them.
Besides, folks doing something permanent in an attempt to be cool &/or accepted seems hairbrained/lemming-like & that precludes most from ever considering tats.
The DSM IV used to list tattoos on the level of cutting, indicating a mental health crisis.
Hereu2019s something Iu2019ve always known intuitively.
u201CExtreme tattooingu2014on the face, neck, hands, and scalpu2014is not merely an aesthetic choice pushed to the extreme. It is, the data suggest, a marker of severe and escalating psychopathology.u201D
69 yo wf and nary a tattoo in sight. Also no hair coloring and love my silver and all natural hair.
What a load of manurea load