What’s up with hair dye and cancer?
Today I want to do a slightly more complicated fact check; we’re looking at an article that involves a reference to a researched study. The one that I chose is from The Washington Post, which discusses a study that suggests a correlation between permanent dye and increased risk of breast cancer, especially in African-American women. A lot of people in my family are cosmetologists or dye their hair a lot, so I’m personally very curious as to whether or not this is true.
The context for this article is the recent trend of women dying their hair gray on purpose. According to the article, even younger women are doing so, following the lead of celebrities like Billie Eilish.
The article commented on the effects of temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent dye on this risk as articulated to them by experts from the study. The original study, published by The International Journal of Cancer, explored possible connections between hair dye and cancer in white and African-American women, factoring in whether or not they dyed their hair at home or had it professionally done.
An investigation through DuckDuckGo’s site search feature reveals a Snopes article that covered older studies on the same subject, but nothing on the study mentioned in The Washington Post. It also provides links to government and health sites that discuss whether or not hair dyes cause cancer.
Moving on to the next step, let’s check out Wikipedia. Some of the information and source links on there led me to more specific definitions of exactly what kind of chemicals were involved in the discussion. Two of the ones mentioned were lead acetate trihydrate and p-Phenylenediamine. They were on the list of potential human carcinogens, but everything I found reported that evidence they cause cancer is inconclusive, and I don’t want to try and explain chemicals that I don’t understand.
Let’s take a moment to read across The Washington Post–how reliable is this source? By looking at the article, I can see at least that they are reporting results fairly consistent with what I noted in the study, that they reference it properly, and that they provide links to more information on it. I don’t appear to be looking at a source that is obviously biased on the subject. No impact factor comes up for this newspaper, but I find mention of Pulitzer Prizes and national recognition–seems like pretty solid writing. Just to be sure, I kept looking. Apparently The Washington Post was recently purchased by a company owned by Jeff Bezos, which may be something to keep in mind. However, Statista, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and MediaBias FactCheck, all sources I consider fairly reliable, create a consensus that agrees The Washington Post is usually factual and credible.
Checking out the author and the journal is vital. The International Journal of Cancer has an impressive impact factor of 7.36, and each of the listed authors have multiple articles published in related medical or research fields. This leads me to believe that they know what they’re talking about.
Finally, I went upstream on the source from the original article and examined the study that was mentioned. I only understand some of it, obviously, but it is useful nonetheless. It provided a link to an organization from which the study participants were gleaned, but most importantly it gives me the original claims made and their hypothetical state. The abstract states that they did find correlations between use of hair dye and breast cancer risk, although they use equivocal language to indicate that these findings are not concrete evidence of the dangers of semi-permanent and permanent hair dyes.
At this point, I think I’ve compiled enough information to determine what the consensus is on this claim. The journal is reliable, the authors are reliable, the newspaper is reliable, so we can say with some certainty that we aren’t looking at a scam. The original study, combined with this boost of trustworthiness, is in agreement with government and health departments that make no finalized claims about the dangers of hair dyes, but do strongly suggest that users remain wary, and that more research be completed. So–if you’re thinking about going gray, or red, or purple, or teal ombre, or whatever other color you can come up with, check out the ingredients on the box, and seek a professional cosmetologist.
All of my sources are either mentioned or hyperlinked. Thanks for reading!
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