The Ontario government says it will ban the practices of eyeball tattooing and implanting eye jewellery after health professionals urged action to prevent the dangerous procedures.
The government has amended a health care bill before the legislature -- Bill 160 -- to include a ban on eye tattooing and implantation of eye jewellery under the conjunctiva, unless performed by a member of a regulated health profession.
Medical professionals recently asked a legislative committee to take action to bar the practices as they continue to increase in popularity, saying it's very difficult to engage in the procedures safely.
Eyeball tattooing involves injecting ink into the whites of the eyes.
The practice made headlines in September when a 24-year-old alternative model from Ottawa says she allowed someone to dye the white of her right eye purple and then developed major complications.
Catt Gallinger said she lost part of the vision in the swollen, misshapen eye and was facing the prospect of living with irreversible damage.
