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www.sciencenews.org September 22, 2012 | science news | 15

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Tattoo infections connected to inkMycobacteria discovered in manufacturers’ supplies

By Nathan Seppa

Tattoos are getting bad ink, literally.An outbreak of uncommon bacterial

skin infections in upstate New York in late 2011 has been traced to a tainted batch of ink used in a tattoo parlor, researchers report August 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Potent antibiotics were needed to vanquish the culprit, Mycobacterium chelonae, a bac-terium in the same family as those that cause tuberculosis and leprosy.

Around the same time that the patients in New York were being iden-tified and treated, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and elsewhere began trac-ing the origins of similar tattoo-based infections. They found eight caused by Mycobacterium in Washington, Iowa and Colorado. Ink used in these states came from three separate suppliers, all dif-ferent from the source of the New York infections.

Some of the microbes varied, too. Two confirmed infections in Iowa, two in Washington and one in Colorado were caused by M. chelonae. But three in Washington arose from the related bacterium M. abscessus. Mycobacterium infections can range from skin rashes to severe abscesses that require surgery, CDC researchers and their colleagues report August 22 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Mycobacterium can show up in tap water, sewage, dust and soil. It’s unclear how the bacteria got into the ink from four different suppliers. Ink used in the New York tattoo parlor was subse-quently recalled.

The New York study began when a dermatologist examining an infected

tattoo couldn’t discern its cause from a standard test. The doctor contacted health authorities, says Byron Kennedy, a physician and deputy director of the Monroe County Health Department. Kennedy and his colleagues contacted people in the county treated by the tat-too artist and uncovered 19 infections. Biopsies by dermatologists and lab tests at the University of Rochester con-firmed M. chelonae infection in 14 of the patients, with probable infection in four others.

“This is a very complete, fair study that looked at the artist and the patients,” says Myrna Armstrong, a nurse and researcher at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

The microbe had previously appeared in a similar outbreak in France. The New York analysis is the first to nail down the

Proportion of u.S. adults with at least one tattoo, 2008

Proportion of u.S. adults with at least one tattoo, 2012

14 percent

21 percent

the brain is a self-cleaning machine. a previously unknown plumbing system has been found to blast out waste by flushing it with the brain’s cleaning solu-tion — cerebrospinal fluid. Jeffrey Iliff of the university of rochester Medical center in new york and his colleagues watched cerebrospinal fluid flowing through the brains of living mice using an imaging technique called two-photon laser scanning microscopy. the fluid rushed into the brain by piggybacking on the outer surfaces of arteries. fluid laden with toxins and waste was expelled through large drains. channels (purple) on specialized brain cells called astro-cytes (green) control the fluid flow, the team reports in the aug. 15 Science Translational Medicine. Mice lacking these channels on their astrocytes had sluggish plumbing. Malfunctions of a similar plumbing system in humans could be behind conditions in which harmful proteins accumulate in the brain, such as alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and traumatic brain injury. — Laura Sanders

microbial cause using DNA-level sleuth-ing and by examining an unopened ink bottle that turned out to contain the microbe, says Kennedy, who coauthored both new reports.

The antibiotics azithromycin and doxycycline proved effective in the New York patients, but lab tests showed the microbe might be resistant to cefoxitin and ciprofloxacin, potent antibiotics prescribed for a variety of infections. The CDC report notes that mycobacte-rial infections can require four months and two or more antibiotics to cure.

Despite these and other reports link-ing tattooing to an increased risk of hepatitis and other diseases, tattoos are as popular as ever. A Harris poll released in February found that 21 percent of U.S. adults have at least one tattoo, up from 14 percent in 2008. s

Brain’s sewer system revealed

body_brain.indd 15 9/5/12 1:29 PM