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Comment by zolbrek | Hacker News Reader

Tattoo inks are regulated in the EU, my tattoo artist wasn't happy about the regulations when they were first announced a few years ago.

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Some of the regulated ones still cause issues.

Had one that was used to give someone eyebrows that got all toasty in an MR scanner.

More importantly, just because tattoo ink is regulated doesn't mean discount tattoo parlors don't use cheap imports or old surplus that don't meet regulations. There are tattoo parlors that will tattoo intoxicated people (which you shouldn't do for a number of reasons ranging from consent to health risks and excessive bleeding) because they're their main source of income, there are likely many that use ink that isn't entirely above board.

Tell me more about the toasty brow please.

As far as I can tell, the ink contains iron oxide which conducts and heats when the RF is applied.

The person we scanned had too much pain for us to continue. The tattoo was not new. I recall another similar incident too. I also have a colleague who scanned someone with recently tattooed eyebrows and the MR caused very significant pain.

The problem would seem to be under reported (see links below which make it seem fairly rare). That said, we don’t have anyone we would report it to and rely on techs talking to each other and sharing these things - which happens regularly.

New risks are discovered fairly regularly. In recent memory: smart rings, squirreled away blood sugar monitors, penile implants, penile beads, hair extensions that are attached with wire. A low level of trust is key.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445217/

https://www.ajronline.org/doi/full/10.2214/ajr.183.2.1830541...

http://www.imrser.org/pdf/shellock.tattoo.jmri.pdf

sounds like lots of regulations. Stuff gets worse to get better.

rohs solder. Leaded paints, enamel paints, water based paints. cars with smog pumps and catalytic converters.

ROHS solder, aka lead-free solder, is more difficult to work with so "worse", sure, but on the flip side you don't inhale lead fumes which accumulate in your body (i.e. will never leave your body) and have the delayed effect of causing lead poisoning which can do anything from making you stupider to literally killing you. I'd say the good outweighs the bad here and maybe leaded solder shouldn't be sold to amateurs who don't work in labs under vents.

I'm not sure what you're arguing for. Keep selling products that disable and kill people until the technology improves and the market selects for the superior product? Because history has demonstrated that that rarely works out as long as the option that kills and disables people is cheap enough to outweigh the immediate drawbacks. Especially when consumers think they're immune.

> lead-free solder, is more difficult to work with

This kind of statement always puzzles me. Leaded solder was an absolute nightmare to use for me, after the switch to the lead-free one I was suddenly much better at soldering within minutes. It was like going from square to round wheels.

I haven't had the (dis)pleasure of working with leaded solder myself so I'm going by anecdotes but lead-free solder seems to have a higher melting point so presumably it's easier to damage components through overheating when working with lead-free solder than leaded solder.

Either way, my point is that regardless of whether there are benefits, they're not worth dying for (or suffering from lead poisoning).

I was arguing for making things better (at the expense of some good solutions)

The people that complain are correct. For example, asbestos IS a good technical solution! But it is worse in the big picture, therefore we need another solution that might not be perfect.

> Leaded paints

Some European countries banned leaded paint in 1909 the US and Canada only banned lead in paint in the late 1970s!

What about enamel and water based paints?

enamel paint on cars was traditionally the best paint, and lead or oil based paints the best for houses/etc. But now we use water-based paints because they are safer for lead content or chemical fumes when drying.

You can add plastic food wrap to that list. The original was amazing at sticking to the plate.

Polyvinylidene chloride wrap somehow isn't widely regulated yet in the US, the formula for popular plastic wrap was voluntarily changed. AFAIK you can still get the "good" stuff at restaurant supply stores and certain retailers, but it's carcinogens do leach into food.

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