With the ancient art of body piercing experiencing a revival, health experts are growing increasingly concerned over its safety. Sarah Foster speaks to Dr Jenniver Higham, who offers training to North-East practitioners.

MICROBIOLOGIST Dr Jennifer Higham points out the sort of gruesome ailments that can result from body piercing in a book. She draws my attention to angry blisters, misshapen faces and oozing sores with a scientist's cool interest. I can barely look, let alone imagine putting myself at risk of developing them. But it seems that Dr Higham, who has also never considered having her body pierced, and I are part of an ever-diminishing group.

Over recent years, the number of people having their navels, eyebrows and other body parts pierced has soared. Once reserved for the young and rebellious, the practice has been adopted by trendy teens everywhere, and even professionals are sporting studs and rings in various parts of their anatomy. In America, which seems to dictate British trends, the number of women having their bodies pierced quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, and there is every indication that the fashion is increasing in popularity.

But 35-year-old Dr Higham, a medical microbiologist at Northumbria University - who became interested in piercing through her involvement with the Health and Safety Executive - knows only too well that it carries serious risks.

"Body piercers are doing a surgical procedure but they don't have the background training," she says. "You have people going in off the street and expecting that things will be all right, but there's documented literature that states one practitioner infected 30 people with Hepatitis B over two months. And a survey of GPs in Rochdale and Oldham found that half of local body piercing centres left their clients with problems needing medical attention, and 95 per cent of the GPs had seen patients with complications to do with piercings."

Dr Higham reels off potential adverse effects ranging from warts to serious infections like HIV, Hepatitis B and C, toxic shock syndrome, liver cirrhosis and herpes, and says she knows of local piercing centres where customers and staff use potentially dangerous practices.

"I definitely know of one in Newcastle that's operating with dubious practices," she says. "It's quite cheap and cheerful but uses an ear piercing gun to do body piercing, which is dangerous because you can't clean the back of the gun. My own students come to me and talk about piercing, and there's always a story."

While premises offering ear piercing can be monitored by local authorities under the Local Government Miscellaneous Provisions Act, this does not cover body piercing.

Practitioners themselves have some protection under the Health and Safety at Work Act, but businesses carrying out body piercing exclusively can escape vetting.

This legal loophole worries Dr Higham. "The lack of legislation concerns me greatly," she says. "At some point, I do believe there will be legislation that covers this because the numbers of piercings is rising, but unfortunately, the way the law is at the moment, it doesn't cover many of the places where body piercing is carried out."

According to Dr Higham, many practitioners operate dangerously out of ignorance rather than ill intent. It was a request by one company that wanted to avoid this - the Newcastle Jewellery Company, on Pilgrim Street - that prompted her to devise tailor-made safety guidelines.

"The Newcastle Health and Safety Executive office was approached by the Newcastle Jewellery Company to come and give them advice," she says. "I went and chatted to them and offered them information on needle stick injuries to protect their workers. I adopted a total approach where I went through their procedures with them and drafted safety operational procedures for them."

The guidelines covered everything from which needles should be used to who should be allowed to have a piercing, but Dr Higham was still not satisfied that staff and customers' safety would be assured. "I didn't feel it was adequate that they operated blindly, so I offered them a training course," she says. "By doing that, they gained an understanding of the reasons why the procedures were in place."

Over several sessions, Dr Higham taught every member of staff involved in body piercing microbiology basics that were relevant to their job. She shocked them with the statistics and gruesome pictures but also tried to inject a bit of fun by inviting them to French kiss Petri dishes and watch the bacteria grow. By the end of the course, the company was confident that it was operating under the safest and most hygienic circumstances possible.

Dr Higham is hopeful that other body piercing practitioners might follow its lead and seek professional advice. "A lot of piercers go for piercing training by someone very experienced, but they usually don't get training on infection control," she says. "At some point, legislation will probably require a set of procedures backed by a trained and knowledgeable workforce, and we are acting in front of that.

"Northumbria is interested in using its staff and resources in the wider community, and we have set up the Bioscience Solutions Initiative (Bissi) business consultancy. We would welcome inquiries from other body piercers."

Despite her reticence in having her own body pierced, and her view of it as a surgical procedure better suited to hospitals than back street shops, Dr Higham is clearly fascinated by the practice. She is knowledgeable about its 3,400 year history, relating tales of Roman centurions having their nipples pierced to hang their capes on, and shamans and high priests in ancient civilisations communicating with their gods with pierced tongues.

Humanity's time-honoured obsession with adorning itself with rings and studs convinces Dr Higham that the practice will endure. And despite the risks, she is not against it.

"What we are doing these days is just absorbing ancient ways back into our culture but for different reasons," she says. "There's nothing wrong with it, as long as it's done in a safe manner."

While those seeking advice on the safest practitioners cannot rely on their local authority, Dr Higham says they can undertake their own research. She recommends that they imagine they were going for an operation and demand similar standards of hygiene, asking questions like how equipment is sterilised and what safety guarantees are given.

"It would become immediately obvious with a few simple questions if the piercer knows what they are doing," she says. But she acknowledges that until the law recognises body piercing for the risky procedure it is, people will continue to entrust their health to those ill qualified to protect it.

For more information on the Bissi business consultancy, contact Northumbria University on 0191-227 4721.