African American Hair Products and Cancer

Check out this article I read on the Naturally Obsessed blog site

Lifestyles Report...Hair scare
By Debbie Norrell

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
At least two months ago WPXI contacted me to do an interview
about ingredients in hair care products used by African-Americans
possibly leading to breast cancer. I was selected because I am a 15-year Breast cancer survivor. I agreed to do the interview. However at the end of The taping I didn't know anything more about the study than before the Cameras started rolling.
Recently WAMO news anchor and New Pittsburgh Courier freelance
Writer Allegra Battle did a story on this same subject and it was a feature On the May 9, 5 p.m. KDKA news. But at the end of these
stories we still Did not have a list of the products. Battle gave me the
list that didn't Make her feature during a recent visit I made to the
WAMO studio's Promoting the Pittsburgh Race for the Cure. So many of my friends have seen The stories on television or read about this issue in the paper and they Want to know which products to be concerned about.
However I wanted to give you more so I went to the Internet and
looked for articles from the Center for Environmental Oncology and found one entitled: Why Healthy People Get Cancer: Center Examines
Environmental Suspects (update Spring 2005).
The article stated, one of immediate research priorities of the
new Center is the puzzling phenomenon of breast cancer in
African-Americans Under the age of 40, who have nearly twice as much breast cancer as do white Women.
The center will work with Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts based cancer institute, to identify suspect contaminants and ingredients in hair care products and other personal products regularly used by African-American young women and their mothers.
More recently, attention has turned to estrogenic compounds in
hair Care products used by Black women as a possible explanation for higher Cancer rates in this population. I've started to carry copies of the list in my purse but we're going to share it with you right here. The list simply says: The following is a list of products that have
previously been Found to contain hormones:
> Placenta Shampoo
> Queen Helene Placenta cream hair conditioner
> Placenta revitalizing shampoo
> Perm Repair with placenta
> Proline Perm Repair with placenta
> Hormone hair food Jojoba oil
> Triple action super grow
> Supreme Vita-Gro
> Luster's Sur Glo Hormone
> B & B Super Gro
> Lekair natural Super Glo
> Lekair Hormone hair treatment with Vitamin E
> Isoplus Hormone hair treatment wit Quinine
> Fermodyl with Placenta hair conditioner
> Supreme Vita-Gro with allantoin and estrogen plus TEA-COCO>
> Hask Placenta Hair conditioner
> Nu Skin body smoother
> Nu Skin Enhancer
The majority of these products contain placental extract, placenta, hormones or estrogen. As early as 1983 Dr. Devra Davis epidemiologist and director of the Center for Environmental oncology, part of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute) and co-researcher Leon Bradlow advanced the theory that xenoestrogens, synthetic estrogen imitators, were a possible cause of breast cancer.
Davis also says, 'most cases of breast cancer are not born, but
made and the more hormones a woman is exposed to in her lifetime, the greater her risk of breast cancer.'
We need to be more cautious of the products that we use on our
hair and our bodies and demand that more information about our health is shared.
The specialist's name is Dr. Devra Davis, the same specialist cited in the email above! If you want to hear the full interview: Chemicals, Cancer and You, you can listen at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14986010

This does not surprise me at all. What surprises me is how people don't relate all these "new" products to the increase in illnesses in people. If you think about cancer, allergies, etc rates back in the day and all the products people had available to them then think about current illness rates and products....in my mind I see a connection.

Thanks for this post. I'm so glad I haven't been using any of these products, but wonder what other ones have hormones in them that we don't know about.

Ok, now I can't stop thinking

According to research on http://www.minoritynurse.com/breast-cancer-disparities-may-have-biological-basis-study-suggests white women are more likely to develop breast cancer when compared to black women. Majority of white females wash their hair more than black females.
However, black females are more likely to die from breast cancer. There is so much needed research and also a need for this information to reach the public. Those products listed would not be on the shelf if we all stopped purchasing them. Companies sell what we will buy.

Ladies speaking of Breast Cancer. I am walking in the Charlotte Avon Walk for Breast Cancer next October (23 & 24). It is a 39.3 mile walk. I initially participated in the even as a class assignment for my Community Social Work class. I am required to raise $1800. Check out my webpage

http://info.avonfoundation.org/goto/StacysBigChallengeCharlotteAvonWalkforBreastCancer2010



If you can please donate to this cause, and spread the word. Every $1.00 counts.

Thanks ladies.

If you want to know more information about the even you can send me a message and I can forward the information to you in your email

StacyB wrote:Ladies speaking of Breast Cancer. I am walking in the Charlotte Avon Walk for Breast Cancer next October (23 & 24). It is a 39.3 mile walk. I initially participated in the even as a class assignment for my Community Social Work class. I am required to raise $1800. Check out my webpage

http://info.avonfoundation.org/goto/StacysBigChallengeCharlotteAvonWalkforBreastCancer2010



If you can please donate to this cause, and spread the word. Every $1.00 counts.

Thanks ladies.

If you want to know more information about the even you can send me a message and I can forward the information to you in your email

@StacyB Girl that is awesome that you are doing the Avon Walk and that you are raising funds for the cause as well! I totally understand because Im also training to run a marathon (January 17, 2010 in Houston) and Im raising funds as well for cancer research as a part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team In Training. I've been fundraising since August and have raised $2,135 so far, with a goal of raising $2,400! I posted my link under the topic "Any Runners Here", so make sure you check it out! I believe in supporting great causes, so I will do my best not to forget and donate!

I recently saw a commercial about the Avon Walk in Houston, but I think its like in April of 2010...I think! Anyhoo...good luck with your fundraising! And pub your site to the fullest...I got a lot of donations that way through mine!

Good Luck!!!

Thanks so much natural83!!!! I will be sure to make a donation to you as well. I've only been fundraising since last week and I haven't started training yet (I'm trying to knock out these last class assignments for the semester first)
I been meaning to tell you for awhile you have the moset beautiful hair. I love your picture. My hair is still in the afro stage unless I blow it out. This avatar is when I first got in flat ironed out back in October. .Thanks again and I'll check out the "Any runners here" post.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] This is us in our marathons raising money for cancer... lol

@StacyB Thanks for the hair compliment! Im laughing too hard at the lil characters above that you posted! Too funny! LOL!