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Many offers, many options and plans available, Louis.
It's really quite remarkable.
Louis: Yeah.
David: Here's a question for Louis, since he has a number of tattoos: are tattoos toxic?
Because there's new research that shows that endocrine disrupters, metals, and carcinogens
are in tattoo ink.
And this is pretty troubling.
The concern is less about sketchy tattoo parlors using bad needles, but more about the inks
themselves, which as Louis knows very well are injected into the skin with these small
needles, they can often cause allergic rashes, chronic skin reactions, infection, inflammation
from sun exposure.
But the more concerning thing now is that the chemicals raise a lot of new questions
about serious long-term risks such as skin cancer.
It appears that one of the chemicals found in black tattoo ink, benzopyrene, is a potent
carcinogen, and that it has actually caused skin cancer in animal tests.
And dermatologists have put out a number of reports in medical journals on rare, perhaps
coincidental cases where melanomas and other malignant tumors were found in tattoos.
And the FDA is being asked to look into this much more extensively.
As you can imagine, the FDA doesn't look into a lot of stuff they should be looking into.
Any concern on that, Louis?
Louis: No.
David: You don't care?
Louis: No, I don't think it's anything to worry about.
David: Why?
Louis: Tattoos have been part of our culture for a long time, and if people are just discovering
this, I'd say the risks are pretty negligible.
David: Does that make sense, though?
Does that make sense to you, Natan, that that's the logic Louis...
Louis: I'm not saying...
I'm not saying it shouldn't be looked into, I'm not saying there aren't potential risks
here, what I'm saying is I don't think there's any cause for alarm.
I think the chances of getting cancer from tattoo ink are probably incredibly, incredibly
small.
David: Something about that logic Natan doesn't like.
Yeah, well, go ahead.
Natan: Well, Louis, how can you say that if they're saying we have to investigate it and
we don't yet know waht the risk is?
David: How do you know?
Natan: How do you know that it's not a risk?
Louis: Oh, I'm saying it's possible that it is.
I'm saying it's a very small one.
David: At this point...
Louis: At this point...
David: You don't care enough to stop getting tattoos?
Louis: I mean, if I decide to get a tattoo, this probably won't be factored into it.
David: There's also in the inks phthalates, which can mimic estrogen or disrupt testosterone.
Exposure of fetuses and infants is a big, big concern on this.
In infant boys, prenatal exposure to dibutyl phthalate has been linked to feminization
of the reproductive tract.
And Louis, I know if you had a son, the last thing you would want is for him to have feminization
of the reproductive tract as a result of tattoos, right?
Louis: Is that so?
David: I would assume.
And in men, phthalate exposure has been linked to sperm defects.
That doesn't sound like something producer Louis wants, that's for sure.
Louis: I would not want any bad things to happen.
David: To me, this is one of those situations, when I hear Louis just brush it off, that's
like smoking, where the risks are known.
We don't exactly know the risks here, but the behavior isn't going to change.
People are just interested in continuing the behavior more than considering the risks.
Yeah, Natan?
Natan: Well, it's interesting, in middle school, actually, we all went to the same middle school,
I remember this kid in health class, we were watching one of those like horror videos about
drug-taking.
David: Yeah.
Natan: And I met him outside the class, he had gone to the bathroom or something, and
he's like, I'm like, why aren't you in class?
And he's like well, you know, I've already taken this stuff, so I don't want to see this
stuff about it being dangerous.
And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense, because you can just not take it again.
It's just like, like the argument didn't make any sense to me, and this is kind of the argument
that I fear Louis is making.
David: Yeah, I mean, Louis...
Natan: I have a tattoo, so I don't want to believe this because that would render my
tattoo harmful.
David: Let me ask... and we have to move on, but let me ask Louis this: would you hold
off on any more tattoos until there's more investigation?
Like would you not get another tattoo until this is... this is more known?
Or if you get the inkling next week to get, you know, some kind of Persian bear on your
back or something, you would just go and do it?
Louis: I'd like to hear more information on, you know, what turns up.
David: All right, well, so there, a little bit...
we're getting in through Louis's outer shell there, and hearing some semblance of logic
and reason.
I like that.
Congrats.
Louis: Thank you.
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