{"id":7737,"date":"2024-06-13T09:03:08","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T09:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=7737"},"modified":"2024-06-13T09:23:31","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T09:23:31","slug":"the-disturbing-truth-about-hair-relaxers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=7737","title":{"rendered":"The Disturbing Truth About Hair Relaxers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

The phone rang incessantly in Dr. Tamarra James-Todd\u2019s office at Harvard\u2019s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said, excusing herself for the third time. \u201cIt\u2019s happening a lot,\u201d she explained after pausing to take another call, \u201cwith the F.D.A. thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

Listen to this article, read by Robin Miles<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption>
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

James-Todd, an associate professor of environmental reproductive epidemiology, is a pioneer who has conducted or been a co-author of nearly 70 scientific investigations over the past 20 years to establish the connection between the chemicals in hair products that generations of Black women have used to straighten their hair and the reproductive-health racial disparities that scientists have struggled to explain for decades. And on that day last October, she was receiving calls because the Food and Drug Administration had announced a proposal for a ban<\/a> on the use of formaldehyde as an ingredient in hair relaxers, citing its link to cancer and other long-term adverse health effects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Her early and sustained interest has also inspired other scientists \u2014 most of them Black women like her \u2014 to add questions about the use of hair relaxers and other products to large longitudinal studies with tens of thousands of subjects as they pursue explanations for these racial disparities. The scientists are driven by their own intimate experience: As children, they sat in salon chairs or in kitchens having chemical relaxers, colloquially called \u201ccreamy crack,\u201d applied to their hair as they waited for it to go from \u201ckinky\u201d to smooth and silky as the products promised. Decades later, they still recall the harsh smell and the sensation of their scalps being aflame. \u201cI go all the way back to: I was right,\u201d James-Todd said. \u201cThat stuff that was burning on my head \u2014 it wasn\u2019t safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>
Dr. Tamarra James-Todd, a Harvard professor who has been studying the chemicals in hair products and their links to reproductive-health disorders in Black women for 20 years.<\/span>Naila Ruechel for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

The research has finally begun to bear fruit: A robust body of scientific evidence has now shown that straighteners and other hair products marketed to Black girls and women have been linked to endocrine-disrupting substances associated with the early onset of menstruation and many of the reproductive-health issues that follow, from uterine fibroids, preterm birth and infertility to breast, ovarian and uterine cancer. Many of these hormone-health-related problems are more common in Black women than in other women, including an aggressive form of breast cancer that contributes to a death rate from the disease that is 28 percent higher than the rate for white women.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phone rang incessantly in Dr. Tamarra James-Todd\u2019s office at Harvard\u2019s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said, excusing herself for the third time. \u201cIt\u2019s happening a lot,\u201d she explained after pausing to take another call, \u201cwith the F.D.A. thing.\u201dListen to this article, read by Robin MilesJames-Todd, an associate professor of environmental reproductive epidemiology, is a pioneer who has conducted or been a co-author of nearly 70 scientific investigations over the past 20 years to establish the connection between the chemicals in hair products that generations of Black women have used to straighten their hair and the reproductive-health racial disparities that scientists have struggled to explain for decades. And on that day last October, she was receiving calls because the Food and Drug Administration had announced a proposal for a ban on the use of formaldehyde as an ingredient in hair relaxers, citing its link to cancer and other long-term adverse health effects.Her early and sustained interest has also inspired other scientists \u2014 most of them Black women like her \u2014 to add questions about the use of hair relaxers and other products to large longitudinal studies with tens of thousands of subjects as they pursue explanations for these racial disparities. The scientists are driven by their own intimate experience: As children, they sat in salon chairs or in kitchens having chemical relaxers, colloquially called \u201ccreamy crack,\u201d applied to their hair as they waited for it to go from \u201ckinky\u201d to smooth and silky as the products promised. Decades later, they still recall the harsh smell and the sensation of their scalps being aflame. \u201cI go all the way back to: I was right,\u201d James-Todd said. \u201cThat stuff that was burning on my head \u2014 it wasn\u2019t safe.\u201dDr. Tamarra James-Todd, a Harvard professor who has been studying the chemicals in hair products and their links to reproductive-health disorders in Black women for 20 years.Naila Ruechel for The New York TimesThe research has finally begun to bear fruit: A robust body of scientific evidence has now shown that straighteners and other hair products marketed to Black girls and women have been linked to endocrine-disrupting substances associated with the early onset of menstruation and many of the reproductive-health issues that follow, from uterine fibroids, preterm birth and infertility to breast, ovarian and uterine cancer. Many of these hormone-health-related problems are more common in Black women than in other women, including an aggressive form of breast cancer that contributes to a death rate from the disease that is 28 percent higher than the rate for white women.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7739,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7737"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7740,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7737\/revisions\/7740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}