Illegal tattoos spreading superbug

A worrisome superbug seen in prisoners and athletes is also showing up in people who get illegal tattoos, federal health officials said Thursday.

Forty-four tattoo customers in Ohio, Kentucky and Vermont developed skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The infections occurred in 2004 and 2005 and were traced to 13 unlicensed tattoo artists, according to an article in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

MRSA is a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that fights off the body’s immune system and destroys tissues.

Detroit

Kevorkian’s request rejected

The Michigan Parole Board rejected Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s request to have his second-degree murder sentence commuted, a state prisons spokesman said Thursday. Kevorkian claims he has less than a year to live.

For the fourth consecutive year, the board turned down the 78-year-old assisted-suicide advocate’s request, said Corrections Department spokesman Russ Marlan.

Because the parole board essentially upheld its earlier decision, rather than deciding the commutation request anew, the matter does not go to Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Kevorkian lawyer Mayer Morganroth said he told Granholm and the parole board that his client’s health was “rapidly deteriorating.”

Morganroth said Kevorkian weighs 113 pounds, suffers from active Hepatitis C, which cannot be treated in prison, and has become diabetic. “Frankly, he’s in terrible shape,” he said.

Kevorkian is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, who had had Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kevorkian called it a mercy killing.