07-02-2003, 05:09 AM
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There can be only one
Industry Role:
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Somewhere else
Posts: 39,075
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Quote:
Originally posted by goBigtime
GAH! wtf...
I thought the whole "you're gonna get hepatitis from getting a tattoo" thing was all back in the 60's and 70's from unclean environments...
Tattooing Could Be Key Infection Route For Hepatitis C 4-4-1
{PRIVATE} 4/8/01 Getting a tattoo could be a key infection route for hepatitis C, the most common chronic viral infection affecting almost 2 percent of the United States population, according to a study by a UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researcher.
Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology, writes in the March issue of the journal Medicine that tattooing has previously been overlooked as a widespread source of hepatitis C, a potentially fatal disease that attacks the liver, leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. It affects 2 percent of the U.S. population.
The study found that people who had received a tattoo in a commercial tattoo parlor were nine times more likely to be infected with hepatitis C than people who did not have a tattoo.
Participants in the study were patients of an orthopaedic spinal clinic, a setting that provided a large volume of patients seeing a physician for reasons unrelated to blood-borne infection. Participants unaware of their hepatitis status were examined, interviewed for risk factors and tested for hepatitis C by the study's co-author Dr. Paul Fischer.
Of 626 patients studied, 113, or 18 percent, had a tattoo. Of those with a tattoo, 22 percent were infected with hepatitis C. Of the 52 patients who had acquired their tattoos in commercial tattoo parlors, 33 percent had hepatitis C. In contrast, only 3.5 percent of patients with no tattoos had hepatitis C...
The study found that people who had several tattoos, or complex or large tattoos, had an increased risk of having hepatitis C and that people with white, yellow, orange or red pigments in their tattoos also were more likely to have hepatitis C than those with only black. These characteristics reflect tattoos acquired in commercial tattoo parlors.
The risk of hepatitis C infection was also higher among patients with a history of injection-drug use, hospital custodial workers, and people who drank beer heavily, but the risk was not increased for those who drank only wine or liquor.
"Most importantly, we found that commercially acquired tattoos accounted for more than twice as many hepatitis C infections as injection-drug use," Haley said. "This means that it may have been the largest single contributor to the nationwide epidemic of this form of hepatitis."..
Hepatitis C presently causes as many as 10,000 deaths each year from cirrhosis and liver cancer, and this number is expected to rise. Nearly 4 million Americans are chronically infected with hepatitis C, and about 36,000 more become infected each year.
Doctors say people with any of the risk factors for hepatitis C should consider having a blood test, because treatments are now available to eradicate the virus in many before it causes permanent liver damage or cancer.
Haley is the study's lead author. Fischer is an internal medicine specialist, formerly at the Dallas Spine Group and presently at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. - By Mindy Baxter
Contact Mindy Baxter [email protected] Copyright ? 1995-2001 UniSci. All rights reserved. http://unisci.com/stories/20012/0404013.htm
Man that sucks.
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please... preach the scare tactics to someone that's actually ignorant.
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SIG TOO BIG
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