Your auto-immune system does not like ink.
Tattoos are fine. There's some evidence that maybe, maybe, immune system responses can be impacted by tattoos. But changes in immune system response does not necessarily mean impaired or negative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_regulator
oversimplifying but in every person there are tradeoffs about attacking things inside yourself (viruses, cancer, etc) and outside things (parasites, bacteria, etc) and your genetics influences this. See the old Th1/Th2 balance
anyway it was probably a typo on his part, he's such a sleepy guy..
It's a risk. A very small one. You gotta figure out your tolerance for risk.