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After lengthy deliberations by the European Chemicals Agency, the European Commission opted to focus on substances known to be hazardous, banning a long list of chemicals already prohibited for use in cosmetics and sharply limiting the concentrations of certain corrosive or irritating compounds.
The ban included two pigments, Blue 15:3 and Green 7, based in part on decades-old research that linked their use in hair dyes with elevated risk of bladder cancer. Acknowledging ink manufacturers’ objections that there were no substitutes for those pigments but lacking evidence to affirm their safety, the commission delayed its prohibition until next year.
“The substances are injected into the human body for permanent and prolonged contact — for life,” said Ana María Blass Rico, a commission policy officer. “So that’s why it’s so protective.”
Dr. Jørgen Serup, a Danish dermatologist who since 2008 has run a “tattoo clinic” at Copenhagen’s Bispebjerg Hospital, said regulations were overdue. But in his opinion, these were poorly targeted, proscribing many substances that would never be used in tattoos while failing to address known problems like bacterial contamination of inks during production. Among thousands of patients he treated for complications, he found that red was more commonly associated with allergic reactions. “There is, from the clinical side, no reason really to ban blue and green,” he said.
Regulators are in a difficult position, according to Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an expert on chemical exposures and their potential health effects. There are over 40,000 chemicals known to be in commercial use, and little is known about the hazards they pose. Furthermore, those hazards may differ for a person based on many factors including their level of exposure to the substance, genetic predisposition and pre-existing disease. “No scientist could tell you right now that this is the chemical you have to worry about the most,” she said.
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