A toxic chemical used in hair products for black women fuels breast cancer, study finds:
Haircare and beauty products marketed to black women often contain a class of hormone-disrupting chemicals called parabens. According to a new study, those chemicals are not only linked to increased breast cancer risk, they uniquely fuel the spread of cancer cells in black women, compared to white women.
Parabens are a group of chemicals that keep mold and bacteria from growing on beauty products, thus prolonging their shelf lives. But, in humans, parabens can mimic the hormone estrogen, possibly fueling dangerous cell growth, according to research.
The study, which will be presented today at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Atlanta, analysed the effect parabens had on breast cancer cells from both black women and white women. Researchers found parabens increased the growth of black breast cancer cell lines, but did not effect white breast cancer cell lines at the same dose.
Parabens also increased the expression of genes linked to breast cancer in both black and white women.
"Black women are more likely to buy and use hair products with these types of chemicals, but we do not have a lot of data about how parabens may increase breast cancer risk in black women," Lindsey S. Treviño, the study's lead researcher, said in a press release. "This is because black women have not been picked to take part in most research studies looking at this link. Also, studies to test this link have only used breast cancer cell lines from white women."
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:34PM (42 children)
turn into a race issue - as opposed to yet another case of the chemical industry recklessly selling toxic products to people.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:42PM (11 children)
To maintain employment black women have been REQUIRED to use these products for decades.
This is already a race issue and it's one of those systemic ones certain folks like to pretend do not exist.
Natural Hair Discrimination [naacpldf.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:46PM (8 children)
Oh please. Just cut that fuzz close to the scalp and be done with it. Black WOMEN do not want that. They want hair they can style like all other races. Why can't they accept their own black hair? Dreadlocks are filthy and a rejection of natural black hair. Any homeless person can get matted dreadlocks.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:49PM (3 children)
Because they will get fired from their jobs for wearing it natural..
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday June 16 2022, @08:30PM
Then I guess the actual story here is that kind of racism? Just maybe?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Booga1 on Friday June 17 2022, @12:59AM
Sad that someone marked you as a troll for telling the truth... It's not hard to find examples of black people fired for their hairstyles.
https://www.courthousenews.com/bp-accused-of-racism-by-fired-top-executive/ [courthousenews.com]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-woman-fired-for-wearing-natural-hair-instead-of-a-wig-louisiana-lawsuit-says/ar-AAQ4ttO [msn.com]
https://medium.com/@thenoblejournalist/why-i-disappeared-from-the-news-desk-at-wjtv-in-jackson-mississippi-bd734b1affb3 [medium.com]
https://newsone.com/2867261/rhonda-lee-weather-woman-fired-natural-hair/ [newsone.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @06:53PM
Then they should take their Nigger asses home to Africa. Why don't these proud black women go home? Why do they follow Whitey around like starving stray dogs?
(Score: 5, Informative) by tizan on Thursday June 16 2022, @08:50PM (3 children)
You obviously do not know about non-white folks and their problems in society or at work.
I expect these kind of comments on twitter or facebook etc...
On a nerd's place...if you have not observed or read about a phenomena avoid making random comments based on your observations in some other arena.
So if you do not know any black person and how they get taunted or sent back home from school if their hair is not "proper" whereas white kids with mohawk cuts is considered acceptable..then your comments is baseless and we can apply Hitchen's Razor to it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @01:21AM (1 child)
Q: And who taunts these poor black people.?
A: 99% of them are other BLACK PEOPLE!
Like white people give a crap if on a black person's head is an afro, flat top, or bald! It ain't white dudes doing the taunting. It's the homeys and the black bitches complaining that their bro with the Arsenio hair isn't "givin me enough bling for my suga" who are doing the taunting.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @10:38PM
As a white man, I think natural hair is pretty while straightened hair looks showy and ugly. I had to grow up before I heard there was something in black society that demanded women (I think it is just women) use chemical hair straighteners.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @06:57PM
You mean *White* society. They can take their black asses home to Africa. Access to Whites and the civilizations we build is not a human right. The world doesn't need deprecated subspecies like Negroids, except maybe in a small nature preserve in Africa.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by unauthorized on Thursday June 16 2022, @08:35PM (1 child)
Those are not natural hairstyles anymore than layered hair is. Braids are not unique to black women in any way either, lots of cultures across the world including some of those that would fit the "white" category in the racist playbook have historically employed this style. The so-called "systemic racism" is not racism and the naming of this concept is disingenuous and manipulative.
I will agree that employers should not mandate hairstyles outside of the few lines of work where one's hairstyle is meaningful (eg modeling), but you will forgive me if I don't accept the tenets of your civil religion.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @09:08PM
Natural hairstyles are those that don't require electrical tooling or putting crap into your hair to maintain. A comb-over, braids, and bowl cut are all a natural hairstyles. Spikes, straightened, curled are not.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:44PM (6 children)
These chemicals are widely used in personal care products, not just those for blacks, so right off the bat, this is bullshit race-mongering. Secondly, the fact that we have better data on how white people react to these chemicals is merely a function of there being more white people in America than blacks and white people are far more likely to participate in medical research than blacks, so again, race-mongering bullshit. Lastly, we have been told for decades that there is no such thing as race, it's a social construct, and outside of skin color, we are identical. Admitting that the races behave objectively differently in any way was the sign of a racist. I guess the racists were right, according to these people. Black people just aren't like white people.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:19PM (5 children)
In an early COVID discussion here on SN I linked to a US govt.'s NIH website which talks about how specifically black people have different immune systems and need different medications, or sometimes stronger doses, than whites. Got modded "troll". So ends intelligent discussion on SN.
Like far too many things in recent "society", terms and language are being misused to an extreme. People should really look up definitions of words like "racist". It is NOT racist to say that black people have darker skin than white people. "Racist" is discriminating against someone based on perceived race. In fact, giving a black person white people drugs could be considered racism if it causes harm! Think about that oh ye triggered ones who love your downmod power.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:28PM (2 children)
Oh you poor, poor victim.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @06:47AM (1 child)
Bet he has lighter skin, and so is more sensitive to criticism and true accusations of racism! (Oh, what he claims to have posted early on in the pandemic? Not true. Racist. Fuck racists.)
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @07:01PM
Ahh the "White fragility" anti-white, Jew propaganda, no doubt regurgitated by a race traitor bitch who only has to deal with non-whites on their own terms.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:30PM (1 child)
And yet, somehow, we all already know that sickle cell anemia exists...
How is this possible if we've all been censored?
Why are we talking about a disproportionate carcinogenic racial effect RIGHT NOW if it's impossible to discuss these things?
Perhaps you should show s this totally non trollish post if it is so great.....
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @09:03PM
Troll. Username checks out.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:07PM (14 children)
I have old white man hair, which is lacking in slickness, and there are some products at Target which seem targeted at black women, but work well to keep my hair from tangling.
No Parabens on the ingredients list, but very high up on the list is: Behentrimonium Chloride, rated as: "high concern for allergies and immunotoxicity - limited data." https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredients/700657-behentrimonium_chloride/ [ewg.org]
I realize medicines are held to a higher standard, but would it kill the industry to establish a core set of GRAS ingredients with data to back up that claim, and only expand to put new chemicals all over people when they, too, have been adequately tested to say something other than: "limited data, high concern for allergies and immunotoxicity?"
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:15PM (1 child)
It's pretty crazy how completely UN-regulated the cosmetics industry is. [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @09:42PM
Weird that article specifically mentioned the chemical from this one.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:18PM (2 children)
It's best to just let old white man hair do what it wants to do. When I get up in the morning, I push it back, so it doesn't get in my face. Run my fingers through it, to tell it to lay down. Pat the bare spot on top that keeps on growing, so it knows I still love it. Every couple weeks, wash it with baby shampoo, run a comb through it, just to inform it which way I want it to lie. Apart from that, I don't mess with the hair, and the hair doesn't mess with me. This treatment requires no mirrors, no harsh chemicals, and the only expense is a visit to the barber shop every 6 to 8 weeks.
I mean, who even looks at old white men's hair? Maybe if your name is Boris Johnson, people can't help staring, but other than that, no one looks at your hair.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:37PM
That's quite a privilege we enjoy!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 16 2022, @07:37PM
Exactly, well sort of. My genetics are 95% Northern Europe, but style wise I'm going with the minority Native American [thelonghairs.us] heritage for the past couple of years. WFH, nobody is looking, so not much corporate culture to be concerned with. And of course, the parents were Vietnam draft age [genius.com] (luckily dad's number never came up, but a good 5% of his high school graduating class didn't come back...) - so I'm sure that plays in to my preferences too.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:42PM (1 child)
I work in a food and beverage processing plant. Everything we make is USDA certified organic, tested, no preservatives, etc.
However, it turns out we're allowed to use many additives in very small amounts that don't have to be on the label. Those additives have been extensively tested as to being non-harmful in any way, but still, you might imagine that someone somewhere could have an allergy or sensitivity to something.
For the record, we do not use any of those, but it's possible the raw ingredients have something we don't know about. Very not likely though. No more than say wheat having some amount of insect bits.
The only one we ever even talked about using is an anti-foaming additive, but ended up not using it. If we had, it would be something like 28 cc in 8,000 liters of soda.
Soda can filling: can filled with carbonated soda, split-second later lid crimped on. Some batches and conditions caused soda to foam and you end up with cans not quite full to spec and get rejected and wasted (or workers take home).
TL;DR: US govt. FDA allows a very small amount of "stuff" that's not on the label in foods, drinks, and other human-contact things.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 16 2022, @07:39PM
They believe in the safety (and ineffectiveness) of Homeopathy...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @08:43PM
Have you tried jojoba? After the late 70s hype died down (it will never be practical as a fuel oil) people understood its value the way the Indians of the southwest always had: as a natural cosmetic.
I think it's about as safe as you can get. You can even eat it, but it will act like as a laxative. It definitely does well as a substitute for natural hair oils that get washed out, as well as making skin less dry. It also emulsifies other oils so if you get car grease on your hands jojoba will help get it out.
It's also a good carrier for essential oils, to use as natural fragrances. Just make sure you're not allergic to any of this stuff first. I've not heard of jojoba allergy but essential oil allergies are more common and a lot of people don't understand that you're not supposed to use them straight.
Standard disclaimer: not a doctor, at your own risk, etc.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday June 17 2022, @03:16AM
Try "Mane & Tail" horse shampoo and conditioner. You can sometimes find it at Target or Walmart, and pretty much any tack shop. Horses have fairly sensitive skin, so it's made relatively non-irritating, and it works well with fine dry hair that likes to grow knots just from looking at it wrong. (I don't use it myself, but I know someone who has horrible lint-textured hair, and it worked wonders for manageability.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Friday June 17 2022, @06:29AM (4 children)
CNC cutting fluid is the only hair product I use. Enough drips on my head while I'm swapping parts to keep the flyers under control.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:31AM (3 children)
I just drilled a hole in the bottom of a ceramic pot (45 degree carbide bit) - that dust does no favors to hair or beard...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:35AM (2 children)
Probably does no good to lungs either!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:17AM (1 child)
One small benefit of post-COVID life: facemasks everywhere.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:46AM
And of course it's always tidy for those bad beard days. ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @07:30PM (7 children)
It was made into a race issue by the original publishers and amplified by the editors on SN.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday June 17 2022, @07:01AM (5 children)
How do you justify that statement?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @10:43PM (4 children)
By including the “black worn” bit in the headline. Next question.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 18 2022, @02:24AM (3 children)
I assume you mean the phrase "black women"? How else would you have phrased that, or would you simply ignore that there is a problem for some people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @03:37AM (2 children)
The papers quoted in the article do not conclude any of the racial susceptibility mumble. That was something businessinsider added, I guess as they are wont to do, and it was copied over into this article.
The paper linked to in this article, "Measurement of endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals in hair products used by Black women", concludes:
One of the links in the article says:
So the parabens are harmful to both blacks and whites, but blacks may be using more of them.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 18 2022, @05:19AM (1 child)
You are selectively quoting. Ask yourself WHY test have been carried out only on cell lines from white women.
Quote taken from the paper, and which you yourself admitted in your last line.
So black women appear to be more susceptible to the effects of parabens despite being inexplicably (but perhaps innocently) excluded from testing for breast cancer which appears to have been commonly available to other women, and they appear to use products which are more likely to contain parabens than white women. Have women from high-income households also been under represented in similar trials, because your quote also mentions them?
There are lots of things that could explain this, but it is evident that there should be more testing on black women for breast cancer diagnoses, particularly where there are thought to be links to parabens. There is nothing inherently racist about this statement. There is a lot of ethnic diversity in the USA, and science should be treating everyone in a similar way. The same medical care should be available to all who live in the USA regardless of their background whether that be economic, ethnic or any other factor.
The fact that you seem to see this as a racist issue is not suggested by the article nor its title. If the title had said left-handed people or red-haired people I would still have accepted the submission for publication. But ignoring that black, left-handed, or red-haired people exist is not an acceptable way for you to respond, in my opinion. That the paper found and reported different results between black women and others is still scientifically significant.
If you are simply objecting to the phrase 'black women' then that appears to be a US specific problem. The rest of the world does not refer to them as African American - I personally know British travellers who visited the USA being described as African Americans despite them being neither of those things. If you object to the phrase 'black women' then you should be equally horrified by the term 'white women' which is a similar term based solely on skin pigmentation.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:07PM
Black Women need not apply. To their hair.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @07:02AM
It is my theory that all racism in the World is English in origin. Bloody Poms.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Barenflimski on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:38PM (6 children)
This article has so many problems with it. My major issue though is that they don't use affect/effect correctly.
I find it fascinating that breast cancer cells in colored people are different than those in "white" people. Does melanin affect specific breast cancer cells? Is it even expressed in breast cancer cells? If this was a thing, wouldn't researchers have noted this years ago and noted this in their studies?
This article seems arbitrarily inciteful. It kinda feels like they are trying to lead people that read it to one of those -ism terms.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:46PM
All we know now is that black women seem to be more susceptable to the carcinogenic effect of the parabens:
There hasn't been a lot of study along racial lines, apparently:
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @06:50PM
It seems factual enough to me, but it's all about perspective and how "triggered" you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @08:54PM (2 children)
But as you rightly point out in your first sentence, that's not what the research says:
So what they're probably saying is that parabens, when applied to black cells, did cause the cells to proliferate, but it did not cause the cells to turn white.
Which leads to the next obvious question: what the hell were the researchers trying to achieve in the first place?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @02:36AM (1 child)
> what the hell were the researchers trying to achieve in the first place?
Knowledge maybe?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @06:55AM
Confirmation that racism is correct? It is called "scientific racism", and it is more racism than science. Bell Curve, much? If you start out with what you want to prove, it is bias confirmation, not science. Did you know that white people are 78.28% more likely to be racist fucks than all other, um, colors of peoples? More likely to commit serious crime, and to storm the Capitol Building. Stats don't lie! Unless they are cooked by lying bastard racists.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @09:27PM
Given how prevalent HeLa cells [wikipedia.org] are in research it is surprising that "Black" cancers are so little researched.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @08:08PM (4 children)
I always remember leaving my Mom at the salon when I was a kid. That place smelled awful. I can't really describe it, but it was a sour chemical smell. She would get her hair "colored".
She had colon cancer in her 50s, but beat it. She died at 79 due to other causes; but doctors said there were slow-growing tumors that were not a concern--some other type of cancer possibly but not worth treating due to the other, terminal conditions.
Oh, and she was not Black. How much of it is just Black stuff? I think it's all of that crap to some degree.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday June 17 2022, @07:07AM (1 child)
So apart from an anecdote about your Mom dying at a not unusual age and having various tumours when she died "at 79 due to other causes", and of course not being black, what is the point that you are trying to make? That you just don't believe certain 'things' and feel that they are crap?
However, I do offer my genuine and sincere condolences.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @10:22PM
I think my point is pretty clear. If something smells weird, it's probably not good for you. Did beauty products cause her colon cancer? We'll never know. People smoked a lot back then. She lived near DC which has a generally elevated colon cancer risk (I've never heard an explanation for that). It may have nothing to do with beauty products but my point stands: beauty products are full of potentially toxic shit, whether they're targeted at Blacks or not.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:34AM (1 child)
My grandmother worked in beauty salons for 45 years, owned her own for 40. Hair dye was bad, but the "permanent wave" solution was the worst. She lived to 99. Of course, her mother chewed tobacco until she was 96, and lived another 2 years after she quit... The job gave my grandmother bursitis in her shoulders, and her hair mostly fell out in her mid 90s, but otherwise didn't seem to have any particular bad effects _on her_.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:15PM
My Grandmother, . . . Never mind.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @02:24AM (2 children)
Meanwhile a black woman goes to the hardware aisle and grabs some Gorilla Glue thinking it's a hair treatment and ends up in the hospital.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/08/us/gorilla-glue-girl-scli-intl/index.html [cnn.com]
Pathetic in every sense of the word.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @06:50AM
That was no Black Woman, that was Runaway1956! He's a Dapper Dan Gorilla Man! And the Paterfamilias, gosh darn it.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @07:06PM
Put it back on The Jew's boat and send it home!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @05:30PM
like deese chemicals be raycis an sheeit