A federal judge has allowed claims in a lawsuit alleging that chemical hair relaxer products manufactured by L'Oreal USA, Revlon, and others cause cancer.
Illinois-based U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland refused most of the corporations' claims in their move to dismiss the lawsuit in the multidistrict case over the items. There are almost 8,000 lawsuits in the litigation.
The judge ruled that the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence to support their charges charging the corporations of negligence, defective product design, and failing to notify customers of the hazards.
Rowland rejected three of the 15 counts in the case entirely and a portion of a fourth, saying that the plaintiffs had not done enough to buttress their assertions that the firms committed fraud.
The chemicals used to straighten textured hair permanently are often marketed to women of color. The first lawsuits were filed following the publication in October 2022 of a National Institutes of Health research that revealed women who used the products numerous times per year were more than twice as likely to acquire uterine cancer.
L'Oreal (OREP.PA) and Revlon representatives did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
After the initial complaints were filed, L'Oreal said it was "confident in the safety of our products and believe the recent lawsuits filed against us have no legal merit."
According to a Revlon spokeswoman, the business does not "believe the science supports a link between chemical hair straighteners or relaxers and cancer."
Several smaller cosmetics companies, including those based in India, are implicated in the complaints.
Jennifer Hoekstra, one of the consumers' leading solicitors, said on Monday that the verdict supports their claim that the goods and the firms' instructions for using them caused cancer.
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