Just days after a study showed that chemical hair straighteners caused a rare type of cancer, an American woman has filed a lawsuit against French cosmetics giant L’Oreal for contracting uterine cancer.
Jenny Mitchell reportedly filed a civil lawsuit saying she had been using L’Oreal hair straightening chemicals for more than two decades, which caused uterine cancer and forced her to undergo a full hysterectomy.
Under a hysterectomy, the woman’s uterus is removed, which means they cannot become pregnant after the operation.
Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Mitchell, said his client sought damages from the French company, among others. Crump also added that black women were especially targeted for such dangerous products.
“Black women have long been victims of dangerous products marketed specifically to them,” Crump said.
“We will likely find that Ms. Mitchell’s tragic case is one of countless cases where companies aggressively tricked black women into increasing their profits.”
Previously, black women in the United States had also accused Johnson & Johnson of selling talcum powder that contained cancer-causing material such as asbestos and was marketed specifically to the dark-skinned consumer demographic.
Read more: Johnson & Johnson to stop selling its talc-based baby powder globally by 2023 as demands expand
As WION reports, in a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, it was shown that women who use chemical tools to straighten their hair frequently have a higher risk of developing a relatively rare type of cancer.
The study incorporated data from nearly 34,000 women in the United States over a period of about 11 years (10.9 to be exact). The participants were between 35 and 74 years old.
“We estimated that 1.64% of women who never used hair straighteners would develop uterine cancer by age 70, but for frequent users, this risk rises to 4.05%,” said Alexandra White , from the US National Institute. of Environmental Health Safety (NIEHS) and the lead author of the study.
Read more: Straightening your hair can lead to a threefold increase in the risk of this ‘rare’ type of cancer.
She added that it’s important to put this information in context given that “uterine cancer is a relatively rare type of cancer.”
The study found no racial link, but because black women are more frequent users of these products and tend to start using them at a younger age, the researchers stress the importance the findings could have for them
(With input from agencies)
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