Troy Amundson is the perfect piercer poster person. A body modification artist for over seven years, he’s spent the last three lobbying for safe piercing in his state of Washington and also working to ensure that certain practices, such as those beloved on BME, are not banned.

He’s been written about in the mainstream press numerous times as an unlikely lobbyist — unlikely in looks perhaps, but his effectiveness is undeniable. He’s kept body piercing bills on the front burner when some legislators claimed it was not a high-priority issue.

Yet, the piercing bill is not the only thing on Troy’s plate. He’s working on the revision of the Seattle Municipal Code on Tattooing, and for a task like this, you want someone who knows and loves the art. He’s co-authored articles for medical journals on piercing practices, educating nurses and doctors as well as changing many of their attitudes towards those in our community. And he’s also one of those behind the MedPierce Kit, a body jewelry removal kit for healthcare facilities and correctional facilities. Troy’s a busy man.

I spoke with Troy because his experiences inspire action. Moreover, he can teach us all techniques on how to fight for safe and fair body modification legislation and make a difference.

MDM: First, I want to start by thanking you for your lobbying efforts to keep piercing safe in Washington state but also fighting to keep body art practices free from what I call “morality” legislation — laws passed not to protect the public but because legislators negatively view the outlawed practice, such as the proposed body art ban on Long Island, NYC that seeks to outlaw genital piercings and facial tattooing, among others.

Have you always been politically active?

TA: Thank you, I really appreciate the support. Encouraging words have definitely motivated me to keep going.

I have rarely voted and have never attended a political rally. I was skeptical of the value of one citizen. I was disillusioned with what I saw as a corrupt and broken system. I never believed that one person could really make a difference.

Take for example, our last presidential election. Regardless of partisanship, how many people were frustrated with the overall outcome? Counts, recounts, and court decisions. Followed by allegations of miscounts, fraud, and voter intimidation. Similar events recently affected Washington’s gubernatorial election.

The power to reform the government is within our hands, not theirs.

Troy Amundson on Capitol Hill with his son

MDM: Then I guess your view of government has changed.

TA: 179°. I still have grave concerns over many issues that face society today. The major difference is that I have witnessed the power of a citizen’s voice.

For many reasons, I believed I was an unlikely candidate to lobby. When I initially agreed to help with the project, I thought the lobbyists would want to keep me as far away from legislators as possible. Instead, the lobbyists decided to put me in front of as many legislators as possible.

Under their guidance I learned how to play the game. I was under constant supervision the first year to avoid mistakes. All of my statements to legislators and the media were drafted and closely scrutinized. Now they find it amusing to watch me run rampant.

MDM: Let’s go back. What prompted you to take action?

TA: Opportunity and concern. A local public health official notified me that a concerned parent with connections and experience working in the capitol wanted to try to pass regulations for body piercing. Immediately, I recognized the implications that may have had on my beloved profession. There is nothing more fearsome than a mother protecting her young.

Thankfully, due to an ongoing working relationship, the health official referred the woman to me.

Troy proposing to his financee from PURE Cirkus after the Pleasure 7 Pain show

MDM: So what did you do? Can you describe your lobbying efforts and the political process?

TA: I was fortunate enough to have the guidance of two professional lobbyists, one Democrat and one Republican. The Republican, Vito, is 81 and has become a fixture after dedicating over 40 years to working various jobs in the capitol. Vito has helped many people start careers in politics (including Democrats). His advice is widely respected and often sought by both parties.

Regulations for body art procedures are a good public health issue due to the social popularity of these arts. It is also rare for any industry to step forward and request restrictive regulations. The issue has advanced meritoriously and by our pro-active position.

The legislative session moves very fast. Legislators must brief themselves on hundreds of bills introduced in a session. They rely largely upon established relationships with others to determine their position on particular issues.

For example, if I were a legislator, I would probably find public health issues the most interesting. While I may passionately research dozens of public health issues pending that session, there simply is not enough time to evaluate all the bills. Some issues, like the budget, would be extremely difficult for me to find any interest in. Unfortunately, my vote would ultimately be decided by facts provided by other legislators, capitol staff, lobbyists, and hopefully my constituents.

As a lobbyist, or citizen lobbyist, you must spend time developing relationships with the legislators. In our case, we have developed very strong relationships with numerous legislators. For example, this year, legislators were faced with six bills to regulate body art. Through that earned trust, many legislators simply turned to my evaluation of the bills.

We have maintained two goals in this effort:

1. Firstly, to secure representation as stakeholders in body art related issues.
2. Secondly, is to pass a basic foundation of appropriate regulations for these procedures.

A large part of our strategy relies on professional conduct, ethical lobbying, and a nonpartisan delivery of fact-based information. It is difficult to set aside personal feelings at times. There is no room for ego and nothing gets accomplished through partisan rhetoric.

Full sleeve branding by Troy Amundson

MDM: What was it like testifying on behalf of piercing professionals before the state legislature?

TA: This year I testified before various committees six times. I get nervous every time. I know that my words could sway opinion for, or against, our issue.

No committee member likes it when a testimony drags on. Keep it short, make your points, and don’t waste time. Script everything and print it in an easy to read format. For body art issues, you probably have two to eight minutes to testify. Do not let too many people testify, perhaps two or three. If questioned, answer directly without too much extra information.

The amount of time you are given will largely rely on the Chair or Vice Chair. I witnessed a notable difference in the treatment given to me opposed to the treatment of those supporting the morality bill. In committees where I had favor, I was allowed time to make my points. Most committee members listened intently to what I had to say. Our opposition was frequently challenged, interrupted, or simply cut short.

If a bill is lobbied correctly, most of your work is done before the committee hearing.

MDM: What kind of effect do you think your testimony had on the state legislature?

TA: The demonstration of our willingness to work with legislators on body art related issues has been commended and continues to draw bipartisan support. We may not have passed a bill yet, but we have changed many opinions about the industry and body art in general.

In one hearing, a doctor from Public Health Seattle & King County testified in support of one of our bills. I gave a brief testimony in support. The only question from the committee was directed to me.

A “morality bill” that targets the industry, and not the protection of public health, has repeatedly threatened artists. Last year the bill passed the Senate. This year the bill died in committee, not even advancing to the Senate floor. This can only be credited to the continued education of the legislators on body art issues.

Immediately after my testimony against the bill, five out of eight of the Labor & Commerce committee members signed as sponsors on our bill. Interestingly, the Chair of the committee sponsored the bad bill last year and our bill this year.

After one of my testimonies, the sponsor of the “morality bill” screamed at me and accused me of lying to the committee. He has portrayed us as opposing his bill because we are trying to avoid oversight. He has repeatedly stated that without licensing, enforcement, and inspections, our bill only provides an “illusion” of regulations intentionally providing the public a false sense of security.

It would be easy to cast me as opposed to licensing and inspection. It is becoming far more difficult for the supporters of the “morality bill” to make a logical argument. Where most legislators had no understanding of body art before, they are starting to recognize what is fact and what is not.

Our persistence and pro-active approach does not reflect an industry trying to avoid oversight. Reviewing my testimonies and statements in the media, you would see that I support licensing and inspection. Legislators recognize that we are trying to take a positive step forward.

With two exceptions, one minor and one major, I have received very professional treatment. Many of the legislators and lobbyists freely shared strategic advice with me. This year I was treated in the exact same manner as a professional lobbyist. Several of the lobbyists even claimed me as one of their own. Not one campaign donation has been made.

I doubt any member of the Washington State Legislature will ever look at body art in the same way again.

MDM: That’s fantastic! So what’s the status of the Bill?

TA: Our bill is dead this year, but this is also the farthest that our issue has progressed. The Chair of the Labor & Commerce committee has stated the committee will be reviewing this issue during the interim. Thanks to invaluable established relationships, I foresee closed-door meetings in my near future.

I am taking at least a year off. I will not be proactively lobbying for regulations next session, but I must make myself available to advise legislators on body art issues.

MDM: In these efforts did you get a lot of help and support from the tattoo and piercing community?

TA: Many artists have been extremely supportive, although many people do not know what they can do to help. Tattoo and piercing related issues can, and should, be widely supported by our clients as well. While public testimony should primarily be delivered by artists, there is no reason not to pack a hearing room with tattooed and pierced citizens. It is really hard for any committee member to ignore, especially when we tend to stick out from everyone else.

High-visibility has become a significant advantage in our fight.

Our issue would have benefited from more support. Emailing legislators and attending committee hearings become essential methods of support.

Unfortunately the legislative session moves very fast. Even with close ties, I usually only had three to seven days notice between the time our bill was placed on an agenda and the time it was actually heard in committee. Many artists did not attend because of scheduling conflicts.

No, it is not convenient. My commute to the capitol is about 65 miles (ranging from an hour to two and a half hours each way, one to four times per week) when working a bill. In addition to taking time off, I have incurred hundreds of dollars in gas expenses alone.

Yet, it is extremely important to make time, especially when opposing legislation. I am sure most clients would understand and be supportive if the situation was explained. I strongly encourage shop owners to close for the day and make the event a shop outing. Encourage your clients to attend or offer to take them with you.

It is disappointing to see artists take a day off after a night out drinking, but not when it really matters. The costs incurred individually far outweigh the costs of bad regulations.

Clients can encourage their artist to get involved.

Troy piercing at Apocalypse Tattoo

MDM: Beyond the Bill, you’ve also worked on the revision of the Seattle Municipal Code on Tattooing. How did you get involve in that and what changes did you advocate?

TA: I have only recently begun working on a revision of the Seattle Municipal Code. I got involved the same way I became involved with the legislation, through having an established relationship with my local health department. I was invited to participate by both the City of Seattle and Public Health Seattle & King County. I have difficulty refusing such invitations.

Many artists in the state have put aside personal and professional differences to support this cause.

We will prepare a draft of the proposed new code, and then circulate it through shops for input. The process will take some time. The City of Seattle and Public Health Seattle & King County are very determined to hear input from the industry and develop a strong working relationship.

One of the reasons for taking time off from lobbying is to focus more on the revision.

MDM: And on top of all this you’ve also been active in educating the medical community on body piercing. Tell me about that. Has the medical community been receptive to what you have to teach them?

TA: Body piercing motivated me to pursue training as an emergency medical technician. I teamed up with Scott DeBoer, a flight nurse from the University of Chicago Aeromedical Network. Scott’s specialities include flight, ER, and pediatric care.

Scott had noted in his research that medical articles varied widely on body art issues and rarely included any perspective from artists. Scott lectures internationally, and objectively reviews health issues and medical concerns associated with body art. And bless his little Ned Flanders heart, he has become an advocate for body art. Ned now knows more about body art than many of his colleagues who have body art.

I would also have to thank Elayne Angel and David Vidra. Often when I feel a question is out of my league, I have turned to their input. Many others have helped as well.

Much of our research has been published.

1. “Piercers on Call”, DeBoer S, Amundson T, Angel E, Letter to the Editor, Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal and Nursing Spectrum (Midwest edition).
2. “Managing body jewelry in emergency situations: misconceptions, patient care, and removal techniques”, DeBoer S, Amundson T, Angel E. Journal of Emergency Nursing 2006 April; 32(2):159-64.
3. Reprinted in Journal of Emergency Medical Services, “Because the article is a great resource for all EMS personnel…”
4. “Tongue, Tubes, and Teens” DeBoer S, McNeil M, Amundson T. Pediatric Emergency Care 2006 October; 22:10, 755
5. “Body Piercing/Tattooing and Trauma Diagnostic Imaging: Medical Myths vs Realities.” DeBoer S, RN, MSN, CEN, CCRN, CFRN; Fishman D, MD; Chwals W, MD, FACS, FAAP, FCCM; Straus C, MD; Amundson T, EMT-B
6. Journal of Trauma Nursing

Our research led to the subsequent design and production of a jewelry removal kit www.medpierce.com for licensed healthcare providers and correctional facilities.

The kit was released in October 2006. While sales have initially been slow, the reviews have been very promising.

MDM: This kit sounds like a great idea and much needed in the medical community. Through all this research and experience, you have a wealth of information to share with the piercing and tattoo community. What advice do you have on promoting safe body modification practices and also ensuring that certain practices are not banned? How can we best make our voices heard?

TA: Learn the art of compromise and sometimes we must tone it down. Before anyone gets reactionary, let me clarify.

Let’s take scarification for example. The very concept itself, artistic scars, is extreme for a large portion of the public. Originally, the lobbyists were extremely concerned how legislators would respond to words like brand, cut, or scalpel.

Our priority became protecting the right of clients to have scarification and a right for the commercial application of scars as body art. One question that we did not try to address was what instruments were allowed to produce a scar. We simply stated that scarification should be regulated in a similar fashion to piercing. The procedures warrant the necessity of sterilization and hygiene requirements.

Some states legally allow the use of scalpels, and other states do not. While I love scarification as an art, there is a justifiable concern over the use of certain implements. What is more important, our right to have beautiful scars, or the tools used to make them?

Start small. Get involved. Start discussing issues with other artists/shops in your area. Put aside differences to support a greater cause. As frustrating as it may be at times, you always have to play it cool and professional.

It is “us” against “them”. The only way to win is to have more of “us”. And not just artists, that includes everyone — legislators, public health officials, clients, the public, and the media.

MDM: What’s next for you? Politics maybe?

TA: I just want to pierce and burn people. Then nursing school.

While legislators, clients, and friends have commented on the future of a political career, there may be too many skeletons in that closet. But one could argue that far worse criminals have been elected.

Marisa Kakoulas is a New York lawyer, writer, the mastermind behind Needled.com, and muse of Daniel DiMattia of Calypso Tattoo, living in Liege, Belgium. She works undercover — or just covered up — as a corporate consultant: proof that tattoos and suits are not mutually exclusive. Her book “Tattoo Law”, an overview of US laws affecting the body modification community, is under way. IAM members can visit Marisa at iam:FREE.

Copyright © 2007 Marisa Kakoulas. This online presentation copyright © 2007 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online April 18th, 2007 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Canada.

I am happy to present the next article in the Cultural Corner series by my colleague Christian Noni. He has a great love and respect for ancient culture and its attending rituals. He is also a collector of ancient jewelry and artifacts relating to body modification. Christian has undergone some serious surgical modifications to his mouth and has documented them for us here in his own words.

In a related note, the Museum of Man in San Diego is completing the hosting of a body modification special exhibit which runs through March. Art from San Diego’s piercing studio, Church of Steel, is primarily responsible for putting it together. I have known Art for some fifteen years, and know of his great love of tribal culture. Along with photos of many familiars in the piercing industry, there is a small but relevant display of jewelry. Art has my respects for orchestrating this exhibit and helping to educate not just piercers, but the public in general.

With modified people no longer considered a “fringe” culture, many large museums are following suit, and presenting similar exhibitions. For those modified individuals in and outside of the industry, I highly recommend visiting the museum if you are in Southern California. You might even score a copy of my book, A Brief History of the Evolution of Body Adornment in Western Culture, at the museum’s gift shop. The limited edition body mod book is nearly sold out. Also check out my new DVD for you hardcore traditional bodymod fans.

- Blake

Semi-Precious Teeth

“To embrace our future, we must first embody our past.”
          - Christian Noni

As a professional piercer, I have always been interested in the historical aspects of body modification. Since I was nearly ten years old, I have collected ethnographic pieces. Anything from traditional Native American dream catchers and weapons, to my mid teens collecting antique piercing jewelry. I feel it is essential to not only respect what tribal cultures around the world created but to also embody it. Thus, I felt using the word “embody” would be the perfect name for the piercing studio that I am opening up. My studio not only performs traditional body piercing and tattooing, but we also plan to have a mini museum of ancient tribal artifacts, primarly focusing on ancient body piercing jewelry and other forms of ritualistic objects. We encourage all people from all walks of life to come and visit us.

From the beginnings of human culture as well as in the present, body modification has served its purpose in our bodies through many different aspects. Aside from common body piercing and tattooing, we as modern beings practise the beauty of adornment through in many other ways — cosmetic surgery, wearing make up, weight lifting, and so on. One large form of body modification with a beautiful history is tooth modifications. In this modern age in body modification, it may be interesting to look back at what the Mayans did in particular.

With a highly developed culture, the Mayans were peaceful people who inhabited the Yucatan Peninsula as well as present-day Guatemala and Honduras. The nation’s history began about 2500 B.C. and the culture flourished from about 300 A.D. to about 900 A.D. They were accomplished smelters and forgers of gold, silver, and bronze, in addition to being highly skilled in cutting, polishing, and engraving semi-precious stones. Many of these skills can be seen in Pre-Columbian earrings, necklaces, and masks.

One form of Mayan stonework that was widely popular was inlaying polished stones into teeth. The Mayans were skilled in the fabrication and placement of beautifully carved stone inlays in precisely prepared cavities in the front teeth. These inlays were made of various minerals, including jadeite, iron pyrites, hematite, turquoise, quartz, opal, serpentine, and cinnabar. The purpose of enhancing teeth blossomed for ritual or religious purposes — some believed that inserting gems into their teeth and filing them in elaborate designs would enhance the voice spiritually, thus resulting in direct communication with God(s).

The tools illustrated above are examples of what kind of tools the Mayans may have used for gem inlaying. Illustrations courtesy of Dr. Schilling.

A round, hard tube was spun between the hands, or in a rope drill, with a slurry of powdered quartz in water as an abrasive, to cut a perfectly round hole through the tooth enamel. The stone inlay was ground to fit the cavity so precisely that many have remained in the teeth for thousands of years. Human skull remains can still be seen in museums today with gems still intact in the tooth.

Not only did the Mayans insert beautiful stones into their teeth, but they too also decorated their teeth in other ways. Some forms of tooth adornment that they performed included carving their teeth in various shapes (which you can see above and in the skull at the top of the article). One of the most extroardinary forms of tooth adornment were their inventive techniques in replacing teeth. Modern oral surgeons now have only just scratched the surface of what was commonly practised over two thousand years ago. Replacing their own teeth with those from animals (and other humans) as well as shells and other implants — not only was this form of adornment was widely practiced but was greatly achieved, with archaeological evidence that the human bone anatomically bonded to the implants and healed.

The teeth of this Mayan skull of the ninth century A.D. have numerous inlays of jade and turquoise. Also note how the upper front teeth have been filed, particularly the decorative front two teeth. Photo courtesy of Dr. Schilling.

Personally growing up with crooked teeth, I had spent more than half of my life trying to achieve that “perfect smile”, undergoing through my youth having braces, headgear, permanent retainers, and temporary retainers. After somewhat achieving that nice smile in my early teens, I assumed the ongoing procedures were coming to an end. Without knowing what the future held in store for me, I ended up finding that I had a rare disease. My father and my uncle have it as well, and I got it early — because of this, I had to undergo more extreme procedures to save my teeth. I underwent numerous tooth extractions, over twenty-five root canals, and lastly dental implants. Dr. Downey quoted that I “have literally gone through more dental work in the last five years than roughly thirty people added up would in their entire lifetime”. All in the name of beauty… After going through well over five years of procedures in trying to achieve that perfect smile, I became very attentive towards other peoples smiles, and with that, I became even more self-conscious of my smile. I already got enough attention for my modifications, and I was receiving even more attention with my ugly smile. Over time I trained myself to smile in a certain way where my bad teeth were not as visible. People typically don’t realize how much a person’s smile can make all of the difference in the world. My smile was affecting my job, dating, and even making friends.

Since I was having all of my teeth fixed, I wanted to add a spice of historical traditional adornment to my teeth. I had always been fascinated by what the Mayans did to their teeth, and as time went by, I felt it was time to embody what our neighboring culture created. My friend and dentist, Dr. Downey, was well aware of the historical culture of Mayan dentistry. As open-minded as he is, he was more than happy to help me achieve this ancient form of beauty. Typically his clientel would insert diamonds or rubies in their teeth, so he was experienced in the procedure. However, I wanted my teeth to be as beautiful and traditional as the Mayans did. Thus, I made plans to have solid opal gems inlayed into my upper and lower canine teeth.

The procedure was not as simple as the one the Mayans used. Considering my teeth are porcelain, the procedure required more delicate techniques when inlaying the stones. Despite the beautiful appearance opal stones have, it is a naturally formed crystal glass. Thus, major preparations were involved to make sure the stones would be inlayed correctly and appear beautiful, and also last for years to come as well. Preparing the teeth and gems took much longer than than actually insert them. The upper and lower canines were prepped in a lab, then hollowed out. On the front of the tooth was a hole for where the gem would be inserted and be visible. The gems were actually not inlayed from the front as most people would assume. They were inlayed from the inside of the new tooth, then supported from behind with porcelain. This is to prevent the opal stone from falling out from the front. Thus, the gem is encased entirely in porcelain with a clear epoxy encased on the front of the gem for extra support (click for a closeup). Once my new gem teeth were ready for insertion, a localized anesthesia was injected. Dr. Downey removed my upper and lower temporary canines and prepped the surrounding gums for my new canines. A dental instrument silimar to a surgical elevator instrument was used to push down on the gums to make room. Once that was achieved, the new tooth was prepped and inserted with a cement epoxy agent to bond permanently. The actual procedure took no more than ten minutes per canine set. Both Dr. Downey and myself were very pleased with the results of how everything looked.

Dr. Downey has not only changed my life with my great new smile, but he too has brought me a step closer to the essence of body adornment. For that, words can not express my gratitude on how thankful I am to have him not only as my dentist, but as a friend who I will never forget.

For more information, you may contact me directly at Noni_Christian@yahoo.com. If you would like to contact Dr. Downey, please go to www.RalphDowneyDDS.com for more information.

“Don’t read your press, weigh it.”
               — Andy Warhol

Trigeminal Neuralgia and Tongue Piercing…
Pierce your tongue, be driven to suicide?

When I got into work on Friday, October 20^th, there was a fax waiting for me. It was a copy of a newspaper article from the San Francisco Daily with a headline that read, “Tongue Piercing Tied to Painful ‘Suicide Disease.’” I knew it was going to be a busy weekend.

And then the calls started. Had I seen the articles? Had I read them? What was I, as the Medical Liaison for the Association of Professional Piercers, going to do about them?

Since the article originated at the Associated Press, it was everywhere. (The AP news service is the oldest and largest news organization in the world. It supplies news to over 1,700 US newspapers daily, 5,000 TV and radio stations, and 8,500 international subscribers.) The piece was printed in dozens of newspapers, occasionally with different headlines over the same body provided by the Associated Press.

For those that haven’t seen the article, the gist of it is this:

A research letter written up in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and published on October 18^th, 2006,* was titled “Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia Associated With Tongue Piercing.” It outlines the case of an Italian woman who complained of face and head pain that started one month after she had her tongue pierced, and lasted for two months until she removed her jewelry. In the article, the pain was purported to come in episodes “described as ‘electric shocks’” which “lasted from 10 to 30 seconds, and recurred 20 to 30 times each day, increasing in frequency and severity in the latter weeks.” According to the authors, these episodes were consistent with the disorder known as trigeminal neuralgia.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a condition characterized by sudden attacks of pain involving different sections of the face. These attacks are severe, and are usually described as resembling electric shocks — the pain is intermittent, but intense. And, most importantly, the article goes on to describe several types of trigeminal neuralgia, the main two being typical trigeminal neuralgia, and atypical trigeminal neuralgia.

Typical trigeminal neuralgia is incredibly painful, and most often caused by an enlarged blood vessel putting pressure on the trigeminal nerve root (the trigeminal nerve is one of twelve cranial nerves serving the face and head). What results from this pressure is an extreme, electric shock-like pain that is completely debilitating for the sufferer. (The diagnosis of typical TN is based in part upon the sufferer’s description of his/her pain.)

Atypical trigeminal neuralgia is a less common form of the disorder and is characterized by less intense, constant, dull burning or aching pain, often with occasional electric shock-like stabs. Atypical TN is also not commonly treatable with medications used for typical TN, such as carbamazapine. (It should be noted that, in the JAMA article, the patient was treated with carbamazapine with little effect.)

The woman in the JAMA article was diagnosed with atypical trigeminal neuralgia, based on the descriptions of her pain (and her lack of reaction to the carbamazapine). After the failure of the medication, she took out her tongue piercing jewelry, and the symptoms disappeared completely within 48 hours. Though it was speculated that the tongue piercing was the cause of the TN, it was noted, “The symptom was probably secondary to a lingual metallic implant, and although findings indicate the involvement of the trigeminal system, the location of the piercing and implant should not have resulted in trigeminal injury.” It further references an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, where a 66 year-old woman was suffering from trigeminal neuralgia from a mercury-amalgam filling in one tooth coming in contact with a gold crown on the adjacent one.^† On the whole, the research letter in JAMA was informative, well written and, above all, objective. The same cannot be said about the Associated Press article.

The problem with the AP article was that it failed to differentiate between typical trigeminal neuralgia and atypical trigeminal neuralgia. It also was the first mention of TN’s most unfortunate nickname: the suicide disease. Because of the overwhelmingly intense pain, those suffering from typical TN have a very high incidence of suicide—the pain is so horrible that many feel this is the only way out. This is not true of atypical TN, which is a much more minor, and more manageable form of the disorder. The combination of these two pieces of the AP article—the lack of distinction between typical and atypical TN, and the inclusion of the phrase “suicide disease”—set the stage for the press that followed.

While the title of the AP article—“Tongue Piercing Linked To Pain”—was not especially inflammatory, things got worse each time the article was reprinted. Each news posting (print or web) provided their own headlines, and made decisions about how much of the article to reprint. (Many papers choose to edit the article for length, often leaving out the paragraph where Dr. Marcelo Galarza, an author of the original study, states, “Certainly, this was an isolated case, an extremely rare complication of this kind of piercing,”) This is where the incitive headlines appeared, such as the one MSNBC, which screamed “Teen’s Tongue Piercing Causes ‘Suicide Disease.’” [CACHE]

Strangely, the whole incident reminded me of The Simpsons. (Yes, the TV show.) On the first season’s DVD collection, if you listen to the writers’ commentary during the episodes, you hear them often mention the cheap shots and cruel jokes included at the expense of the old. This was because every week they were pitted against the Cosby show in their time bracket. And while The Simpsons led the ratings with the younger demographic, anyone over 40 that was watching TV at that time was watching Bill Cosby and his TV family. This gave the creative team at The Simpsons free rein to make the elderly the butt of any joke they wanted—there was simply no one watching who would complain to the network.

This is much the same way piercers and other body modification artists allow themselves to be portrayed by the mainstream media: We’re the whipping boy for traditional news services because not only are we a marginalized and unorganized group, but we’re simply not watching, and not insisting that news outlets are held accountable for misinformation and exaggerations that are printed about us and what we do.

So what was I going to do about the mess started by the Associated Press?

The first thing I did was to write a letter on behalf of the APP to the Associated Press writer, politely seeking to educate her on the situation, and explaining my interest as the APP’s Medical Liaison.

The next, more daunting, task was to attempt to send a letter to the editor of every news outlet that ran the AP article. After emailing out the first round of letters for the articles that were already sent me, I composed a letter to the APP membership asking for help in tracking down versions of the article in all media. This message was sent to every APP member via email asking each to forward me contact info for any paper they encountered which printed the AP story—which quite a few did. (I then sent out the letter to each news source.) This request was also posted on MySpace, and I saw the letter re-posted repeatedly in bulletins by over the course of several days.

The response to all this was amazing. I received emails from members (and non-members) from all over the country. These included about fifty links to outlets running the AP letter, from newspapers to TV stations to radio stations to Internet news groups. I spent a day modifying the letter template, and composing and sending a letter to each news editor. I posted on newspaper and newsgroup comment boards, and on larger papers that listed postal addresses, I had letters printed and sent from the APP office to each of the newspapers.

At times it did seem rather futile. How many of my letters to the editors did I think would actually get printed? It didn’t matter—I was simply determined to not let tongue piercing be the focus of yet another misinformed, sensationalistic attack on what we do, on what we hold to be most important.

And it must have worked. The last time I did a Google search with the words “tongue piercing suicide disease,” my letter came up #3, on the Chicago Tribune’s website [CACHE]. Not too bad.

And while we are still a long way, as an industry, from getting the respect that we deserve, we don’t have to be passive participants in the process. If we don’t like the way we’re being portrayed by