Laser Unit Proposed For Tattoo Removal

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 14

Laser Unit Proposed For Tattoo Removal

A Christchurch dermatologist, Dr F. S. Airey, suggested yesterday that a Government agency buy a laser machine to be used for the painless and accurate removal of tattoos.

Dr Airey was talking to a meeting of representatives of the Child Welfare Division, the Vocational Guidance Service, the police, the medical profession, ■ social workers and the Labour Department, held to consider the problem. Dr Airey said there were very few who had tattoos who did not very itiu«h Wish to get rid of them. One way would be to arrange facilities for the removal of tattoos by laser beams. This would avoid the cost of hospital treatment, which was necessary for skin grafting, and the facilities could be available to persons in prison and other institutions. They would have to pay for the treatment—perhaps on time payment. A laser could be tuned to the appropriate wave-length so that it would remove only the tattoo pigment without harming the body. The pigmented tissue was simply vaporised. Dr Airey said that the process was still experimental, and enormous precautions had to be taken. In due course the laser would take the place of skin grafting, to remove 'tattoos and disfigurements.

Dr Airey suggested that professional tattooists should be subject to regulations—that they should be registered, their premises inspected and their actions scrutinised. He said the literature on tattooing recorded cases of infection of leprosy, syphilis and hepatitis. “Those are reasons enough to cramp the style of the tattooist,” he said. Other measures he proposed were that tattooists be required to use a chemical colouring substance that would eventually fade and that some steps be taken to make tattooing unfashionable or unpopular. The meeting set up a committee with a view to organising a conference on the subject.