A Danish expert has said that the government tried to “manipulate” the results of his study in a bid to prove that some types of tattoos cause cancer. The comments come via dermatology professor and leading physician Jørgen Serup from Copenhagen’s Bispebjerg Hospital, who says that claims from the Environment Ministry that some inks cause the life-threatening disease are not credible.
Serup, who was commissioned by the ministry to study 65 different types of ink, said that his team had only conducted tests on about a third of the substances when the ministry opted to publish false findings on its government website.
He told the media, “The ministry disliked our report and our results. Their claims do not reflect our medical knowledge so they tried to manipulate us and make us change the report,” the Copenhagen Post reports.
He went on to say that the testing revealed that the inks could not cause cancer, but that improper hygiene and handling were the most likely causes of medical problems relating to tattoos.
The news comes amid a parliamentary effort to regulate inks and register tattoo artists in the Scandinavian country. The proposals are backed by environment minister Ida Auke and the legislation has so far seen 13 types of ink outlawed in Danish tattoo parlours.