Flesh-eating diseases. Gang members trapped by tattoos. Japanese CEO forces horimono on workers.
The weeks tattoo headlines were fodder for the horror genre. For some, a welcome relief from the sappy stories of granny getting her first tramp stamp. For others, a pox on all that is tattoo couture in our body art revolution. For me, I like a bit of shady with my highbrowness. Its sexy and dangerous. And flashing gooey tissue via flesh-eating bacteria could be the new naughty for vag exposing pop stars. You heard it here first.
Today I offer a rundown of the international tattoo news, written in drama queen Fox News/White House Press Secretary style. Ring the alarm.
Three Men Get Flesh-Eating Disease After Samoan Tattoo
The curse of the Samoan pea.
For hundreds of years, people have lain immobile with their skin stretched while the hand-tapped Samoan pea marked their cultural, even spiritual, rite of passage. Like machine tattooing, risk of infection exists if the tattooer does not employ proper hygiene or the person tattooed does not follow after-care instructions. Its supposed to be a celebratory event. But for one 24-year-old New Zealand man, the tattoo almost turned deadly. [Strategic pause.] After having his stomach, buttocks and back tattooed via the traditional technique using a boar's tooth comb, the man contracted necrotising fasciitisthe flesh-eating disease, which chewed away a quarter of his body tissue. Hes been in intensive care and undergoing numerous skin grafts. It aint pretty. The Dominion Post reports:
The surgery took more than five hours and plastic surgeon Charles Davis said the patient's life was in danger throughout.
"The skin that had been tattooed was bubbling and obviously grossly infected. He was going into multiple organ failure.
His kidneys stopped working first and his other organs followed."
The treatment was a race against the rapid spread of the infection.
"The infection spread very rapidly. We could almost see the borders of it growing hour by hour.
All the skin that had been tattooed had melted away and the fat was liquefied underneathit just rotted away."
He wasnt the only one. Two other men were also admitted to the hospital with the disease, although less advanced, and a fourth man was diagnosed with cellulitis, an acute skin inflammation linked to an infected wound. All the men reportedly had traditional Samoan tattoos in the past six months, two from tattooist Sua Vitale Fa'alavelave who has agreed to stop working while an investigation is underway.
Defending his hygiene practices, a spokesperson for the tattooist said that Sua has done hundreds of tattoos, and the boar's tooth comb used was always washed in a sterilizing liquid. This prompted questions over whether the guidelines for traditional tattoos are adequate; however, New Zealands Ministry of Health defended the rules saying that it has been consulting with Pacific communities and traditional practitioners to "bring these guidelines to their attention" since 2002, when a man died of blood poisoning directly linked to his pea.
One News has a short video of Samoan tattooing where one wearer of the pea explains, "It's a big thing for our culture and it's always been there....people have passed away through it because of infections...That's a responsibility that people know." [Insert fair and balanced culture-mocking quip here.]
Gang Members Trapped By Tattoos
In the US, another rite of passage leads to death.
Texass Channel 10 offers up a two-part report on gang tattoos. The report claims tattoos make breaking away from the gang lifestyle almost impossible. They reveal who you've fought, where you've served time and the crimes you've committed. In an online video segment, one ex-gangbanger gives his tale about moving away from his old hood but trouble still finding him because of his tattoos, especially the gang marks on his hands.
The tattoos tell stories of their own. Channel 10 had Gang Officer Gus Vaquera explain their symbolism:
"The hourglass, [means] he's doing time. The calendar years indicate how many years he's been incarceratedsome offenders will have calendar years tattooed on the body. They're always thinking of their friends their loved ones, their wives out in the free world."
Other tattoos represent what gang a prisoner is in, what crimes he's committed and who he has killed. Those are the tattoos Vaquera is most interested in but they are getting harder to identify.
A video on the symbolism accompanies the article. For more on gang tattoo symbols, check out this Wiki entry or the book Gangs and Their Tattoos.
The report does include info on state programs where ex-gang members can get free tattoo removal.
Not reported in the article is my own personal group of roughnecks: Inked Inc. Check out how we roll in our stronghold of conventionality.
The corporate thang can be just as hard as street thuggin. Just see the next headline.
Japanese CEO Forces Horimono on Workers
The mark of the Yakuza branded on health food company workers.
Horimono, traditional Japanese tattoos, may have its origins in the late Edo period but today in Japan they largely bare the mark of the criminal underworld. Perhaps this is why one former health food company president from Osaka forced his employees to get tattoos when they threatened to leave the company. No real reason is know as the ex-boss has denied the allegations. Other reasons could be kinky. [Insert fair and balanced culture-mocking quip here.]
I had a friend who was able to get his stretched lobes surgically "fixed" for free because of the gang tattoo program. His gang? Straightedge. Also, you can get vegan tattoos removed too because evidently we're a gang as well.
Also, I knew someone who had necrotising fasciitis. I think he was the first person to get it in the States or something special that isn't really special. Seriously horrible disease.
Well no shit gang tattoos are going to cause you problems later in life! Maybe they should have considered that before they joined a gang.
6
Spinergy
Nashville, TN
April 2004
DEC 05, 2006 07:38 AM
About a year ago the topic of flesh eating bacteria popped up in conversation with a friend who is an ICU nurse at a local university hospital. I was told such infections aren't that uncommon. She informed me the hospital she works in will usually have one to three flesh eating bacteria cases at any given time, and that was about average for a large [800+ bed] metropolitan hospital. They apparently keep these cases very hush hush as not to freak out other patients or the general public. She said the bulk of patients with this were either homeless or low income elderly, people with poor to no personal hygiene, poor diet, and frequent exposure to "filthy" living conditions.
Also learned it's not the bacteria that does the "eating", it's your own immune system. The bacteria, a type of strep, multiply at a fairly normal rate. Problem is this particular strain causes an immune response of A-bomb proportions in most humans, causing the body to over react and destroy its own flesh.
Marisa_DiMattia
NEWSWIRE
I'm lost
DEC 04, 2006 11:05 AM