Originally Posted by wgscott

In all seriousness, I think people should decorate themselves however they wish. However, my wife, who is a virologist and has spent her professional life working with live hepatitis and HIV, is extremely concerned about tattoos from the standpoint of public health and the spread of hepatitis C in particular (which is a lot more robust than HIV and survives in dried blood). There is little if any health regulation of tattoo parlors, and she has successfully convinced me (and hopefully our kids) to stay far away from anything like this, body piercing places, nail manicure places, etc.

Tattoos fade due to an immune response, so there is an issue of long-term side effects from the ink, and although I am unaware of a link between tattoo ink and skin cancer, I am very skeptical from that point of view as well.