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This team previously found that permanent hair dye and straighteners may increase breast and ovarian cancer risk. When they crunched the numbers, the researchers found that 1.64% of women who never used hair straighteners would go on to develop uterine cancer by the age of 70. For frequent users (with frequent defined as getting four or more treatments a year), that risk went up to 4.05%.
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Exposure to heavy metals, including cadmium, arsenic, nickel and chromium, all classified as group 1 carcinogens, can induce cell damage and other changes that result in an increased risk of cancer. If you are regularly using a product that most likely can cause cancer, isn’t that something consumers should be told? You are seeing so many hair relaxer lawsuit television commercials because the negligence seems so obvious and the injuries to these women are very serious. This study aligns with everything else on the health risks from exposure to toxic chemicals in beauty products, such as phthalates, phenols, and parabens, which can interfere with the endocrine system and impact fertility. Bifurcation would be splitting off just the issue of general causation for pretrial. General causation assesses whether a substance or event has the potential to cause a particular harm on a broader scale.
Can Hair Dye Increase Cancer Risk?
The FDA can take action if any cosmetics are found to be harmful or in violation of the law (such as being mislabeled). However, many of the older ingredients in hair dyes (some of which are still in use) were excluded when the FDA was initially given the power to regulate these products back in the 1930s. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the safety of cosmetics, including hair dyes, but by law there are limits on what the FDA can do. For example, the FDA does not approve each ingredient used in hair dyes before it goes on the market, and in general the responsibility for the safety of products and ingredients falls to the manufacturers. Most of the concern about cancer risk has been with the semi-permanent and permanent dyes. Because darker dyes have more of some chemicals that may cause cancer, these products are of greatest potential concern.
Hair Dyes And Straighteners Linked To Higher Cancer Risk, Especially For Black Women
Permanent hair dye, chemical straighteners tied to breast cancer risk - McKnight's Long-Term Care News
Permanent hair dye, chemical straighteners tied to breast cancer risk.
Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024 03:31:12 GMT [source]
The new medical monitoring lawsuit was filed last week in federal court in Michigan. A medical monitoring lawsuit is a legal action where individuals seek to receive regular medical exams or tests for potential health problems due to exposure to harmful substances, even if they do not currently have any symptoms. The lawsuit blames these defendants’ hair care products because the chemicals in their hair straighteners led to her regular and prolonged (and unknown) exposure to phthalates and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals (“EDCs”). She was diagnosed with endometrial carcinoma just a few months ago in September 2022. The first was filed in the Northern District of Illinois (the 10th hair relaxer case now pending in that district), and the second was filed in the Western District of Washington (the first in that district). The pace of new hair relaxer lawsuits has increased dramatically since the start of the new, with six new cases just in the last week.
Uterine cancer rates have also been rising in Black women in general, so there could be an association that is not directly caused by using chemical hair-straightening products. Elevated estrogen seems to increase the likelihood of the development of uterine cancers. It is hypothesized that some of the chemicals found in these products (such as phthalates, parabens and cyclosiloxanes) can essentially behave like hormones in the body. It is thought that this is why the risk may increase when these chemicals are introduced.
Hair Straightener Lawsuit Update – Forbes Advisor - Forbes
Hair Straightener Lawsuit Update – Forbes Advisor.
Posted: Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Gainers said that as research continues, she would like to see the hair products industry more closely regulated, including requiring ingredients to be clearly listed. The FDA warned that the use of hair smoothing products in an area that is not properly ventilated could lead to a risk of a person inhaling formaldehyde. All of the women were first-degree relatives of a woman who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which puts them at a higher risk of getting cancers themselves. Frequent use of the products is defined as more than four times in the previous year, according to the study, which included more than 33,000 women between the ages of 35 to 74. Approximately 60 percent of participants who reported using straighteners in the previous year were self-identified Black women, according to the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Currently, lawyers are accepting cases from people who developed uterine, endometrial and ovarian cancer because the science for these cancers is the strongest.
These lawsuits are usually filed against a common group of defendants across different jurisdictions but involve similar issues. So we would spend a year without advancing the cases to prove the Sister Study is correct and that hair relaxers cause cancer. The hair relaxer class action MDL has been the fastest growing mass tort over the last few months.
In a study looking at potential risk factors, chemical hair straightener use seemed to correlate with the likelihood of the development of uterine cancer, especially in the African American population. In a study of more than 30,000 women, frequent chemical hair straightener use more than doubled the likelihood of the development of uterine cancer. Fortunately, the risk was low across the entire group, but chemical hair straighteners seem to be a risk factor. The lawsuit alleges that Mitchell started using hair relaxers when she was 10 years old. Like many black women in America, Mitchell used hair relaxer products every 6-8 weeks for the next 18 years.
Types of hair dyes
Hopefully, reasonable settlement payouts will be offered to victims long before these trial dates come to pass. If not, these bellwether trials are representative cases that are tried first to provide both parties with critical insights into how juries might respond to the evidence and arguments. Because the outcomes of these trials can heavily influence negotiations for potential settlements for the rest of the cases within the MDL. “There is more scientific evidence connecting the use of formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing chemicals with cancer, in particular uterine cancer as well as breast cancer,” Bunick said. “There is evidence that products containing these chemicals are disproportionately found in hair care products marketed to Black women, which wrongly reinforces healthcare disparities,” Bunick said.
Dr. Doris Browne, a medical oncologist and former president of the National Medical Association, suggests women start a conversation with their doctor about their risk for breast cancer. The study findings should be understood in context, says Dr. Otis Brawley, a medical oncologist with Johns Hopkins University. The actual risk found for use of these hair treatments is quite low, he adds, especially compared with other known carcinogens like tobacco or radiation. "This is a very weak signal that these things might be causing cancer in the population," he says.
They showed an association between hair-straightening products and uterine cancer. More than 250 cases have been filed in court recently against makers of hair straightening agents, in which people allege they experienced health problems including cancer after using the products, the news agency Reuters reported in July. Other studies have also shown no increased risk of breast cancer due to the use of hair dye.
According to Dr. Christopher Bunick, PhD, a Yale Medicine dermatologist, an FDA ban on these products would be a major achievement in keeping consumers safe from carcinogens used in over-the-counter products. “It’s about time,” said Dede K. Teteh, an assistant professor of public health at Chapman University. Researchers use 2 main types of studies to try to figure out if a substance can cause cancer. A substance that causes cancer or helps cancer grow is called a carcinogen.
Back in June, there were only 149 pending cases in the hair relaxer MDL. As of this week, the number of pending hair relaxer lawsuits has swelled to 2,244. If this pace continues, and we fully expect that it will, we will pass 4,000 cases by the end of the year and could surpass 10,000 cases before the end of 2024.
Women who use chemical hair straighteners and relaxers may have a higher risk of uterine cancer, according to a new study from researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). However, Dr. Dorigo advises frequent users of hair dye and/or hair straighteners to scale back their use, regardless of whether they use them at home or in the salon. He also encouraged physicians to share the results of the studies with their patients so they can make informed decisions about using chemical hair straighteners and hair dye. Seven new hair relaxer product liability lawsuits have been filed in federal courts since the start of 2023. Four were filed in the Western District of Missouri, and the others were filed in the Northern District of Ohio, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Louisiana. Uterine cancer was the primary injury alleged by five of the plaintiffs.
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