The researchers discovered that once a tattoo is made, the ink rapidly travels through the lymphatic system and, within hours, accumulates in large quantities in the lymph nodes — key organs of the body’s defense system. Inside these nodes, immune cells called macrophages actively capture all types of pigment. This ink uptake triggers an inflammatory response with two phases: an acute phase lasting about two days after tattooing, followed by a chronic phase that can persist for years. The chronic phase is particularly concerning because it weakens the immune system, potentially increasing the susceptibility to infections and cancer. The study also showed that macrophages cannot break down the ink like they would other pathogens, wich causes them to die, especially with red and black inks, suggesting these colors may be more toxic. As a result, ink remains trapped in the lymph nodes in a continuous cycle of capture and cell death, gradually affecting the immune system’s defensive capacity.
The study found that tattooed mice produced significantly lower levels of antibodies after vaccination. This effect is likely due to the impaired function of immune cells that remain associated with tattoo ink for long periods. Similarly, human immune cells previously exposed to ink also showed a weakened response to vaccination.
There are far too many humans with tattoos that could have been researched extensively, but they chose mice. Mice do not have the same kind of skin density as humans, and I doubt a tattoo artist or researcher would have the talent to tattoo a mouse’s skin.
There’s just so many things wrong with using mice in this study. So many bad ratios with the size of the animal. I mean, for fuck’s sake, tattoo artists already practice on pig skin. Pigs would have been a better analogue, but honestly, they should have picked the millions of humans who were already tattooing themselves.
Of course, if they did that, they wouldn’t get the same result and be able to push this sensationalist science news title, now would they? Except, in this case, we’ve gone from research paper to straight to sensationalist news title in one step! Just let the institute PR department push the narrative for you, without having to wait for that pesky news cycle to crawl through the telephone game.
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Within a single city, hundreds of people get tattoos each day. A large cross-section of those probably haven’t refreshed their COVID vaccine, but only because they haven’t gotten around to it.
Just use pigs.
Basically the same thing as a human (except for the opposable thumbs, which explains us eating them), but cleaner and smarter on average.