Letter: HIV and tattoos

It is well-known that dangerous syndromes such as HIV and hepatitis are contracted through tattooing, whether it is being done in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Paris, Los Angeles, Beijing or Bali.

A number of famous rockers went to the interior of Borneo to get their tattoos just to play it safe and also to avoid being infected by the above-mentioned diseases.

Robbie Williams got his Maori tattoo in New Zealand, one musician of the Red Hot Chili Peppers went to Borneo to get his
Dayak tattoo and Angelina Jolie got some of her tattoos in Cambodia and Thailand from Buddhist monks.

National Geographic once aired a program with regard to the art of tattooing where their anthropologists traveled and visited tribes living in Papua, the Mentawai Islands, the Dayaks in Kalimantan, the Maories in New Zealand, Polynesian and Melanesian ethnic groups living on the Pacific islands and Indian tribes of the Amazon, African tribes, many Asian tribes, the Bedouines in Arab countries, etc., which showed their specific skills of tattooing mostly done with bronze, bamboo or wooden needles, jungle thorns and the inks being used are extracted from roots, plants, burned wood, tree bark, leaves, flowers and berries.

Some tribes from Kalimantan are known to use inks extracted from plants that at the same time serve as an anesthetic. It is a very interesting program.

Indeed, the art of tattooing is an ancient skill still being used by many tribes around this globe to show their social status; moreover, for many women it is part of their makeup in order to enhance their beauty.

Cleopatra is well-known to have decorated her body with many tattoos.

Nowadays, unfortunately, many tattoo parlors on this globe ignore hygiene and are careless about health aspects.

The media has published many articles about the risks of getting tattoos and many international TV channels have already aired reports about the dangers of tattoos, in order to warn the public that their personal health is at risk, no matter where they get these body decorations.

It is absolutely ridiculous for this Australian to blame a Bali tattoo parlor for his HIV. Who knows, maybe he already had HIV before he even visited Bali. I blame his personal stupidity.

Lynna van der Zee-Oehmke
Bogor, West Java