SCARY: please read!

My hair stylist e-mailed me an article about certain black hair products being linked to cancer... breast cancer in particular. Below is the article... If you just want to see what products they have concluded are a risky... i put them in bold for you. But please try to read the entire article, it's not long... and we should all know what ingrediants are dangerous to our health!

------------------------------------------------------------------

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 studios 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 titled: 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 Jajoba 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 and Nu Skin Enhancer.

*i used B & B Super Gro *

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, almost 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. Ladies and gentlemen beware.

Michelle Porter
Assistant to Mary Jo Dively, Vice President & General Counsel
Assistant to M. Christina Gabriel, Vice Provost & Chief Technology Off.
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Warner Hall, 6th Floor
Pittsburgh, PAÂ 15213
(412) 268-3662 - telephone
(412) 268-2330 - facsimile
[email protected] - email

Not that I didn't trust you, but I went out to search this story to make sure it wasn't an urban legend.

Much to my dismay, it's NOT

http://newpittsburghcourier.com/index.php?article=10522

Thanks for taking the time to post that article.

I still use BB Super Gro! But, I haven't used it on my scalp in a while...I use it on my ends to seal in the moisture after I apply shea butter. I think if I use it on my ends I should be fine. I won't use it on my scalp. This is an interesting read. Thanks so much for posting it!

Jewell said:

I still use BB Super Gro! But, I haven't used it on my scalp in a while...I use it on my ends to seal in the moisture after I apply shea butter. I think if I use it on my ends I should be fine. I won't use it on my scalp. This is an interesting read. Thanks so much for posting it!

Click to expand...

But don't you apply it with your hands? Unless you wash your hands immediately, you may absorb it into your skin, no?

Wow, THANKS!!!!

Thanks. It is amazing how small common things can make a life changing difference.

Thank you so very much for sharing that w/ us. I will pass this along to my family and friends. I will be steering clear of those products b/c they are NOT worth risking my life.

Isn't any woman taking birth control pills, patch, "the shot" or some other oral contraception more seriously and directly exposed to estrogens than anything that could be absorbed thru the skin from these products. I mean I INGEST birth control pills (every day for the last 20 odd years). I guess my question is whether the increase in cancer risk is more linked to the ingestion of estrogens rather than the occasional exposures to very small percentages of estrogen in these products?

TaTa19 said:

Wow, THANKS!!!!

Click to expand...

very informative, thanks.

I used to use B&B too!! Thanks for the info.

wow!

abcdefg

nchristina said:

Thanks for taking the time to post that article.

Click to expand...

Yes, thanks!

Dang I love that B&B super gro.

Wow thanks for posting this very important information Kristen.

Wow...I'm throwing away my QH hot oil.

Thanks so much for posting this.

Thanks for posting this!

This thread has more info including an article I posted about some research performed by my own childhood doctor on the affects of these products on young girls (its not good): http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=59002

Out of all the products on that list I think I've heard of 2. And one I was thinking of using but could only purchase it online and was unsucessful with doing so cause they didn't ship to where I live. Thank GOD!! And that was the conditioner with placenta. The other was the b&b super grow. I see this everywhere where there are black products. I've never purchased it. Can anyone post a picture so that I can confirm what the product looks like? I went online trying to find a picture so that I could read the ingredients to educate myself as to what to stay away from but the b&b that I came across is the same one that I see in stores and it doesn't state on the front of it's jar to contain hormones. It says it contains : sage, sulphur and coconut oil. It's name is BB Maximum strength super gro conditioner. It's in a white jar with blue writing.

thanks,
DMarie

Thanks for the information. I think you should you caution and research before you use any product even if it is not on the list. This is scary.

I'll be sure to forward this info to as many as possible. Thanks for sharing!!!