Thousands of Black women claim hair relaxers gave them cancer

investing.com:

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