Presentations on How Hair Relaxers Cause Cancer Will Be Heard by MDL Judge This Week

Lawyers and experts will hold educational sessions for the Court, outlining scientific issues and evidence surrounding the cancer risks from hair relaxer chemicals during a Science Day on January 8, 2026.

A federal judge will hear a series of presentations this week from plaintiffs and defendants involved in hair relaxer lawsuits, which are designed to educate the Court about scientific underpinnings involved in the massive litigation, which includes more than 11,000 claims brought by former users left with uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries.

Lawsuits allege that L’Oreal and other major manufacturers have failed to warn users for decades about the risk that hair relaxers may cause cancer, implicating a wide range of popular chemical hair straighteners commonly used by African American women, including Just For Me, Dark & Lovely, ORS Olive Oil and others.

The litigation first began to emerge in late 2022, following the publication of a study linking hair relaxers and cancer, indicating women who regularly use the products face a 156% increased risk of uterine cancer. However, plaintiffs maintain that the manufacturers knew or should have known about these risks years earlier yet placed a desire for profits before the health and safety of women.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in complaints brought throughout the federal court system, the cases have been centralized as part of a hair relaxer lawsuit MDL (multidistrict litigation) in the Northern District of Illinois since 2023, where Judge Mary Rowland is currently presiding over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Judge Rowland has called for a series of bellwether trials to help the parties gauge how juries will respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated in thousands of claims. In May 2025, she had the parties identify 32 hair relaxer lawsuits to serve as a bellwether discovery pool, with each of the claims involving women diagnosed with either uterine cancer, endometrial cancer or ovarian cancer following regular use of certain popular products.

However, last year, Judge Rowland announced that she will hold a hair relaxer “Science Day” on January 8, 2026, to educate the Court about complex issues involved in the litigation before rulings are issued on a number of key issues, including the admissibility of evidence and expert testimony claiming to describe how hair relaxers cause cancer and other points of scientific information.

Such proceedings typically involve non-adversarial presentations by expert witnesses or lawyers, which are intended to educate the court about issues and concepts that will come up during the proceedings. The presentations are not part of the official record in the case, or subject to cross examination.

In a docket entry (PDF) on December 15, the judge called on each side to submit five scientific articles relevant to their presentations before the holidays, which were intended to help the Court prepare for the science day scheduled for this week.

During the proceedings, each side will be given two hours to make their presentations, which are expected to be made by scientists, medical professionals or other experts in the appropriate fields.

The Court hopes the Science Day presentations will give it a better understanding of plaintiffs’ theories on how hair relaxers cause cancer and the manufacturers’ answers to those claims.

January 2026 Hair Relaxer Lawsuits Update

Following the Science Day, Judge Rowland should be better informed on which evidence and testimony to allow juries to see and consider during hair relaxer lawsuit bellwether trials, the results of which could lead to a global hair relaxer settlement agreement, potentially avoiding a multitude of costly and time-consuming individual trials.

The cases selected for the hair relaxer bellwether pool involve women diagnosed with uterine cancer, ovarian cancer or endometrial cancer after regular chemical straightener exposure and are expected to go through case-specific discovery and depositions over the next few years, before the parties select a smaller group of claims that will be tried before juries.

While the outcome of these early trials will not be binding on other women presenting a claim, they will be closely watched by lawyers involved in the litigation and may have a substantial impact on the timing and average amounts of any hair relaxer settlements offered to women diagnosed with uterine cancer, endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer in future years.

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