Last winter, Sheila Bush, a cosmetologist from the St. Louis area, was relaxing in her recliner when she saw an advertisement on TV from a law firm. The campaign asked viewers to call a toll-free number if they or a loved one had used hair relaxers and had been diagnosed with uterine cancer.
Bush, who claimed to have used hair relaxers every six weeks for most of her life and received a uterine cancer diagnosis approximately ten years ago, picked up the phone after watching the advertisement three times.
The advertisements that Bush saw on television and on social media were part of a national campaign by legal firms to register black women for lawsuits, claiming that at least twelve cosmetic companies, such as L’Oreal and Revlon, sold hair relaxers that contained chemicals that raised the risk of uterine cancer but failed to alert consumers.
The recruiting drive began in October of last year, a few days after research conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States discovered a correlation, albeit a non-causal one, between the frequent use of chemical hair relaxers and uterine cancer. Women of color are the target market for hair straighteners like L’Oreal’s Dark & Lovely and Revlon’s Creme of Nature, according to the lawsuits.
A summary of the results of the NIH study appears after some of the advertisements feature black women using hair products.
However, L’Oreal and Revlon claim to have tested their goods through stringent safety evaluations. The firms pointed out that the NIH study’s authors stated that further research is necessary and that they were unable to reach a firm judgment regarding the etiology of the women’s tumors.
“We don’t think there’s any evidence linking chemical hair relaxers or straighteners to cancer,” Revlon stated. Adding to its pledge to provide the greatest products “for all skin and hair types, all genders, all identities, all cultures, and all ages,” L’Oreal said that its hair relaxers have a “rich heritage and history” that began with black inventors and business owners.
All of the components in Namaste’s products have been approved by US regulators for use as cosmetics. Namaste is the company that markets ORS olive oil relaxers. “We don’t think the complainants have demonstrated or will be able to demonstrate that using Namaste hair relaxer products resulted in the injuries they claim in their complaints,” an attorney representing Namaste and its parent company, Dabur India, stated.
The other businesses included in the lawsuit either did not reply to messages or declined to comment.
The legal claims’ success will depend on proving the items were dangerous and that the company should have known about the risk but chose not to alert purchasers. However, the cases encounter obstacles: Apart from the possible constraints of the NIH study, plaintiffs are suing several companies, and women might find it difficult to substantiate their usage of particular items if they don’t have receipts.
Shortly after the NIH research was released, Ben Crump, who represented the family of George Floyd, the black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, and another attorney, Diandra “Fu” Debrosse Zimmerman, filed the first hair relaxer lawsuit on behalf of Jenny Mitchell of Missouri.
Since then, several plaintiffs’ attorneys have filed more than 7,000 cases of a similar nature. As part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding (MDL), which aims to more effectively manage lawsuits filed in several jurisdictions, the cases have been consolidated in a federal court in Chicago.
Crump thinks the lawsuits should be seen as “essentially civil rights issues,” even though the legal allegations made in them do not involve racial discrimination.
In an interview, Crump, who frequently appears on TV news and represents plaintiffs in well-known racial discrimination cases, said that black women feel as though they must adhere to a European ideal of beauty.
Bush, 69, told reporters that the white kids at her St. Louis school made fun of her “cotton” hair—a phrase that is frequently used to disparagingly describe the texture of black hair. Born in 1954, when racial segregation in public schools was declared unlawful by the U.S. Supreme Court in a historic ruling, Bush said, “You felt as though you didn’t belong, or weren’t as good as they were.”
Jayne Conroy, an attorney whose firm has filed at least 550 hair relaxer cases, claims that women of color make up the vast majority of the plaintiffs. She also notes that attorneys do not have complete client demographic information.
A master complaint that was submitted in the court case that combined the claims included numerous instances of ads that the plaintiffs claimed were unfairly exploitative of past racial injustice. According to the lawsuit, a L’Oreal advertisement praised “how beautiful black hair can be.”
Damages are not indicated in the lawsuit.
According to Adam Zimmerman, a professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law who specializes in mass tort litigation, framing the action as a civil rights issue could resonate with juries beyond discussions about intricate product liability claims.
The incidents occur at a time when natural hairstyles are becoming more and more popular among black people. Legislation protecting people against hair discrimination in public schools and the workplace has been passed in at least 23 states. Similar legislation was enacted by the US House of Representatives last year but it was not acted upon by the Senate.
According to the NIH, uterine cancer is the most frequent type of cancer in the female reproductive system and is on the rise in the United States, particularly among black women.
About 66,000 new instances of uterine cancer are expected to be identified in the US this year, according to the American Cancer Society. This is less than 25% of the 297,790 new cases of invasive breast cancer and more than three times the 19,710 cases of ovarian cancer.
In the previous year, women who reported using hair straightening products more than four times were more than twice as likely to get uterine cancer as women who did not use them, according to an NIH study including over 33,000 participants. In all, 378 women in the research got uterine cancer. According to the study, black women utilized the goods more often than other women.
The NIH stated that the contents of particular products the women used were not gathered by the researchers. However, in response to written enquiries, principal author Dr. Alexandra White stated that formaldehyde may be released from heated hair straighteners along with phthalates, parabens, cyclosiloxanes, and metals. Via a spokesman, she turned down demands for an interview.
In April of next year, the US Food and Drug Administration intends to submit a regulation proposal that would outlaw the use of formaldehyde and compounds that release formaldehyde in hair straightening products. A spokeswoman for the organization declined to elaborate on the timing.
The WHO states that formaldehyde is a recognized carcinogen that has been connected to leukemia and nasopharyngeal cancer. According to the NIH study, phthalates and other chemicals may be endocrine disruptors, which can alter hormone levels and raise the risk of cancer.
The company’s attorney stated, “Formaldehyde is not an ingredient in Namaste’s hair relaxer products.”
Businesses and defense attorneys have cited what they claim to be weaknesses in the NIH report. Noting that the study was the first to raise a potential link between hair straightening products and uterine cancer, the companies involved in the litigation asked the presiding judge to dismiss the lawsuits in July, undermining the plaintiffs’ argument that the companies knew or should have known of any risks associated with the products.
In a court filing, the corporations stated that the NIH study included sisters of women who had already been diagnosed with breast cancer, “who therefore may have a genetic predisposition.” In response to enquiries, lead author White stated in a statement that there isn’t any solid evidence at this time connecting a family history of breast cancer to a higher risk of uterine cancer.
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind & Garrison, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, and other firms represented the companies’ defense attorneys in a court filing stating that the plaintiffs “rely completely on imprecise accusations that the items, generally, contain “dangerous substances.”
The plaintiffs think the judge will be convinced to allow at least some of the cases to go to trial by the results of the NIH study. Jennifer Hoekstra, an attorney for Bush, stated that plaintiffs can proceed with their case even in the absence of proof linking the products to cancer. According to her, research from a respectable government agency like the NIH is probably sufficient to present cases to a jury.
Zimmerman, a law professor at USC, stated that an FDA regulation proposal would not change the plaintiff’s burden of proof that the chemicals in hair relaxers caused them harm. Yet, he noted that FDA moves “often draw lots of attention—increasing the numbers of people likely to participate in any mass litigation” and that data regulators rely on to support a proposed regulation would probably be acceptable in court.
Furthermore, a so-called short-form complaint that facilitates plaintiffs’ case filing was approved by the court supervising the litigation throughout the summer.
An analysis of marketing data compiled by X Ante, a company that tracks mass tort advertising for large companies, law firms, and investment analysts, shows that since November of last year, plaintiffs’ lawyers have spent about $8 million airing more than 40,000 television ads across the United States, with a strong concentration in Baltimore, Houston, and Washington, DC.
At community events and on social media, attorneys pursuing clients who were injured by hair relaxers have made posts.
After reading advertisements from plaintiffs’ law firms on social media, Quiana Hester said she and her sisters, Ariana and Nakisha, have been interviewing attorneys and considering whether to join the lawsuit.
The sisters expressed their desire for their mother’s passing away from endometrial cancer last year to have significance.
Former real estate salesperson Patrice Hester would frequently advise her daughters against going natural since it would ruin their careers and draw unwelcome attention. Ariana, 35, who lived in the San Diego area with her mother and sister Nakisha, said, “She never wanted us to do anything to make us stand out or be a target.”
Bush, the cosmetologist from St. Louis, stated that she became involved in the lawsuit in August due to the potential for hair relaxers to cause cancer. “I would like to see relaxers taken completely off the market if we find out that that is the case,” the woman stated.
