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 The findings could explain at least in part why African-American
women go through puberty earlier and suffer from higher rates of
asthma and reproductive diseases than other groups.
"The truly scary thing about this is that women are being exposed to
these chemicals weekly and sometimes even daily, without their
knowledge, because they assume a product is safe simply because it
is on the shelf," epidemiologist Tamarra James-Todd said after
reviewing the report in Environmental Research. James-Todd, a
professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in
Boston, supplied product information for the study but was not
directly involved with the research.
Investigators tested 18 hair products - from hot-oil treatments to
anti-frizz polishes, relaxers and conditioners - looking for the
presence of chemicals called endocrine disrupters. These chemicals,
which interfere with the way the body produces hormones, have been
linked to reproductive disorders, birth defects, asthma and cancer.
Altogether, the researchers looked for 66 different endocrine
disrupters. Each of the tested hair products contained at least four
and as many as 30, said lead author Jessica Helm, a research fellow
at the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, Massachusetts.
Eleven products contained chemicals prohibited in the European Union
or flagged as a potential problem in California. The two hair
products marketed to children contained the highest levels of banned
or regulated chemicals, Helm said in a phone interview.
The vast majority of the chemicals discovered in the hair products -
84 percent - were not listed on the product labels.
"It's widely known the U.S. is doing an inadequate job of testing
and regulating chemicals," Helm said. Companies are allowed to omit
chemicals from product labels if they are fragrances and if they are
considered a secret ingredient in the product formula.
"In many ways, we are protecting companies' rights to privacy over
consumers' health, which seems backwards and can be particularly
harmful to high-risk and vulnerable populations," James-Todd said in
an email.
Janette Robinson Flint, executive director of Black Women for
Wellness in Los Angeles, said the study's findings are proof that
she and other black women "can't shop our way out of this problem."
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"We also need manufacturers to disclose what's in the products,"
said Flint, who was not involved in the study. "We need some
regulatory body to regulate these manufacturers so they don't let
them get away with not disclosing what is in the product and then
using toxic products."
She called the study long overdue. Researchers have known for years
that black girls enter puberty earlier than other girls and that
black women have disproportionately higher rates of deadly
reproductive cancers, she said. Yet little prior research has been
done.
"It's as if our lives do not matter," she said in a phone interview.
Helm pointed out that she and her team studied only 66 chemicals,
just a fraction of those in hair products. There's a "universe of
other products we really don’t know much about," she said.
Prior research has shown that black women use more hair products
than other women and suffer disproportionately from uterine
fibroids, early puberty and infertility, Helm said. In addition,
their rates of endometrial and breast cancers are on the rise.
The current study can't prove that the presence of endocrine
disrupting chemicals in hair products actually causes these or other
problems. But the study does point to them as a potential source,
Helm said.
She, James-Todd and Flint encouraged more regulation of the contents
of hair products targeted to black women and personal-care products
in general. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dianne Feinstein
(D-California) have introduced legislation (the Personal Care
Products Safety Act) that would further empower the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration to regulate ingredients in cosmetics and
personal-care products.
Flint also welcomed a fashion trend toward more natural hairstyles
for black women and children.
"The more natural styles come into fashion, and the more skills
black moms have in styling their children's hair in natural
hairstyles, the less vulnerable our children will be to overexposure
to toxic chemicals and having their immune systems compromised by
having to fight these toxic chemicals," she said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2w1LlxH Environmental Research, online April
25, 2018
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