Thousands of Black women claim hair relaxers gave them cancer
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[November 04, 2023]
By Mike Spector, Richa Naidu and Kristina Cooke
(Reuters) - Sheila Bush, a cosmetologist, was lounging in the recliner
at her St. Louis-area home last winter when an advertisement from a law
firm flashed up on her television screen, urging viewers to call a
toll-free number if they or a loved one had used hair relaxers and been
diagnosed with uterine cancer.
After seeing the ad three times, Bush, who said she had used hair
relaxers every six weeks for most of her life and was diagnosed with
uterine cancer about a decade ago, decided to pick up the phone.
The ads Bush saw, on television as well as on her social media feeds,
were part of a nationwide effort by law firms to sign up Black women to
file lawsuits alleging at least a dozen cosmetic companies, including
L'Oreal and Revlon, sold hair relaxers containing chemicals that
increased the risk of developing uterine cancer – and failed to warn
customers.
The recruitment campaign launched in October last year, days after a
U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found an association,
though not a causal link, between frequent use of chemical hair relaxers
and uterine cancer. Hair straighteners such as L'Oreal's Dark & Lovely
and Revlon's Creme of Nature are marketed overwhelmingly to women of
color, according to the lawsuits.
Some of the ads show Black women applying hair products before cutting
to a summary of the NIH study's findings.
L'Oreal and Revlon told Reuters their products are subject to rigorous
safety reviews. The companies noted that the authors of the NIH study
said they didn't draw definitive conclusions about the cause of the
women's cancers and that more research is warranted.
"We do not believe the science supports a link between chemical hair
straighteners or relaxers and cancer," Revlon said. L'Oreal added that
it is committed to offering the best products "for all skin and hair
types, all genders, all identities, all cultures, all ages" and that its
hair relaxers have a "rich heritage and history" originating with Black
inventors and entrepreneurs.
Namaste, which markets ORS Olive Oil relaxers, said all ingredients in
its products are approved for cosmetic use by U.S. regulators. "We do
not believe the plaintiffs have shown, or will be able to show, that the
use of Namaste hair relaxer products caused the injuries that they
allege in their complaints," a lawyer for Namaste and its parent
company, Dabur India, said in an email response to Reuters.
The other companies declined to comment or didn't respond to requests.
MORE THAN 7,000 LAWSUITS
The success of the legal claims will hinge on demonstrating the products
were harmful and that the companies knew, or should have known, of the
danger and failed to warn customers.
But the cases face hurdles: In addition to the potential limitations of
the NIH study, plaintiffs are suing multiple companies, and if women
lack receipts, they may struggle to provide evidence that they used
specific products.
Ben Crump, who represented the family of George Floyd, the Black man
murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, and another lawyer,
Diandra "Fu" Debrosse Zimmerman, filed the first hair relaxer lawsuit on
behalf of a Missouri woman, Jenny Mitchell, shortly after the NIH study
was published.
Since then, more than 7,000 similar lawsuits have been filed by many
plaintiffs' lawyers. The cases have been consolidated in a Chicago
federal court as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding (MDL), a
procedure designed to more efficiently manage lawsuits filed in multiple
jurisdictions.
Even though the legal claims asserted in the lawsuits don't allege
racial discrimination, Crump says the cases should be viewed as
"essentially civil rights issues."
For Black women, "it's projected on them that they have to live up to
some kind of European standard of beauty," Crump, who represents
plaintiffs in high-profile racial discrimination cases and is a regular
on cable news, said in an interview.
Bush, aged 69, told Reuters about being mocked by the white children in
the schoolyard of her St. Louis school for her "cotton" hair, a common
derogatory term used for Black hair texture.
"You felt as though you didn't belong, or weren't as good as they were,"
said Bush, who was born in 1954, the year a landmark U.S. Supreme Court
decision found racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
The vast majority of the plaintiffs are women of color, according to
Jayne Conroy, a lawyer whose firm has filed at least 550 hair relaxer
cases, adding that attorneys don't have full demographic data on their
clients.
A master complaint filed in the court proceeding consolidating the
lawsuits features many examples of advertisements that plaintiffs
contend improperly took advantage of historical racial discrimination.
One L'Oreal ad touted "how beautiful Black hair can be," the complaint
said.
The complaint seeks unspecified damages.
Framing the litigation as a civil rights issue could resonate with
jurors beyond arguments over complex product liability claims, said Adam
Zimmerman, a professor at the University of Southern California Gould
School of Law who studies mass tort litigation.
The cases come at a time Black people are increasingly embracing natural
hairstyles. At least 23 states have passed legislation aimed at
protecting people from hair discrimination in the workplace and public
schools. The U.S. House of Representatives passed similar legislation
last year that stalled in the Senate.
TWICE AS LIKELY TO DEVELOP CANCER
Uterine cancer is the most common form of female reproductive system
cancer and rising in the U.S., especially among Black women, according
to the NIH.
The American Cancer Society estimates there will be about 66,000 new
cases of uterine cancer diagnosed this year in the United States, less
than a quarter of the number of 297,790 new cases of invasive breast
cancer, and more than three times the 19,710 cases of ovarian cancer.
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Sheila Bush, who is among women who have filed thousands of lawsuits
against cosmetic companies alleging they sold hair relaxers
associated with increased risk of uterine cancer, poses for a
picture in her living room holding a photo of her with cancer, in
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 26, 2023. REUTERS/Lawrence
Bryant
The NIH study of more than 33,000 women found that those who
reported using hair straightening products more than four times in
the previous year were more than twice as likely to develop uterine
cancer as those who did not. A total of 378 women in the study
developed uterine cancer. Black women used the products more
frequently than others, the study found.
The researchers did not collect information on the ingredients of
specific products the women used, the NIH said. But Dr. Alexandra
White, the lead author, told Reuters in response to written
questions that hair straighteners have been found to include
phthalates, parabens, cyclosiloxanes and metals, and may release
formaldehyde when heated. She declined interview requests through a
spokesperson.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to propose next April a
rule that would ban formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing
chemicals from hair-straightening products. An agency spokesperson
provided no further details on timing.
Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen and has been linked to
nasopharyngeal cancer and leukemia, according to the World Health
Organization. The NIH study said phthalates and the other chemicals
are suspected endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the
body's hormones and are suspected of contributing to cancer risk.
"Formaldehyde is not an ingredient in Namaste's hair relaxer
products," the company's lawyer said.
The other companies declined to comment or did not respond to a
Reuters query on whether their products contain or release
formaldehyde.
Companies and defense lawyers have pointed to what they say are
flaws in the NIH study. The companies named in the litigation asked
the presiding judge in July to dismiss the lawsuits, noting that the
study was the first to raise a possible association between hair
straightening products and uterine cancer, undermining plaintiffs'
argument that the companies knew or should have known of any risks
related to the products.
The companies also noted that the NIH study consisted of sisters of
women previously diagnosed with breast cancer "who therefore may
have a genetic predisposition," they said in a court filing. Lead
author White said in a statement that there is currently no strong
evidence linking family history of breast cancer to increased risk
of uterine cancer.
The plaintiffs "rely entirely on vague allegations that the
products, generally, contain 'toxic chemicals'," the companies'
defense lawyers at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind & Garrison, Arnold & Porter
Kaye Scholer and other firms said in a court filing.
Plaintiffs believe the NIH study will persuade the judge that at
least some of the cases should proceed to trial. Plaintiffs can
advance their case without proving the products caused cancer, said
Jennifer Hoekstra, a lawyer representing Bush. The study from a
reputable government institution such as the NIH is likely enough to
get cases before a jury, she said.
An FDA rule proposal wouldn't alter the plaintiffs' burden to prove
they were harmed by the chemicals in hair relaxers, said Zimmerman,
the USC law professor. But evidence regulators rely on to support a
proposed rule would likely be admissible in court, he said, and FDA
actions "often draw lots of attention — thus increasing the numbers
of people likely to participate in any mass litigation."
In addition, the judge overseeing the litigation over the summer
approved a so-called short-form complaint that makes it relatively
easy for plaintiffs to file lawsuits.
Since November last year, plaintiffs' lawyers have spent about $8
million airing more than 40,000 television ads across the U.S., with
much of it concentrated in Baltimore, Houston and Washington DC,
according to an analysis of marketing data compiled for Reuters by X
Ante, a firm that tracks mass tort advertising for large companies,
law firms and investment analysts.
Lawyers seeking hair relaxer plaintiffs have posted on social-media
platforms and attended community events.
Quiana Hester said she and her sisters, Ariana and Nakisha, have
been interviewing lawyers and are weighing whether to join the
litigation after seeing ads on social media from plaintiffs' law
firms.
The sisters said they wanted their mother's death last year
following a battle with uterine cancer to mean something.
Patrice Hester, a former real estate agent, regularly counseled her
daughters that wearing natural hair would attract unwanted attention
and harm their careers. "She never wanted us to do anything to make
us stand out or be a target," said Ariana, 35, who shared a home
with her mother and sister Nakisha in the San Diego area.
Bush, the St. Louis cosmetologist, joined the litigation in August,
she said, because of the possibility that hair relaxers cause
cancer. "If we find out that that's the case," she said, "I would
like to see that relaxers were taken completely off the market.”
(Reporting by Mike Spector, Richa Naidu and Kristina Cooke,
Additional reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Vanessa
O'Connell and Suzanne Goldenberg)
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