← Therapy for Black Girls
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- [00:11]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website@therapyforblackgirls.com while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.
- [00:56]
Hey y', all, thanks so much for joining me for session 449 of the therapy for Black Girls podcast. Get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm Dr. Joy from the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. Ever been at the pharmacy counter and your mind goes blank when the pharmacist asks any questions? That's why you need to listen to beyond the script from CBS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jake Goodman, this podcast answers the questions you wish you'd asked, like which meds may not work well together, what vaccines you might need before a trip, and even the ones you were too embarrassed to say out loud. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [01:50]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
Friday, kick off the Winter Olympics in style with the opening ceremony from Italy, featuring a special performance by by Mariah Carey. Celebrate the greatest athletes from around the globe as they come together to go for gold. Lindsey for sensational the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
- [02:10]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Ilia Malini redefining the sport Friday at.
- [02:14]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
8 Eastern, 7 Central on NBC.
- [02:17]
Lingokids Advertiser
And Peacock, are you a parent who feels guilty about screen time?
- [02:21]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
No.
- [02:21]
Lingokids Advertiser
Well, no, not you, sweetheart, but your mommy and daddy do.
- [02:25]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Why?
- [02:26]
Lingokids Advertiser
Because too many apps are filled with AI garbage, inappropriate videos and random content.
- [02:31]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Like a dancing potato or worse.
- [02:34]
Lingokids Advertiser
That's what parents worry about. We're Lingokids, and we're here to help parents out. Lingokids is the number one entertainment platform for young kids because kids love it and parents can trust it. They want something safe and fun. Yes, fun, but also something that actually.
- [02:48]
Child Voice in Lingokids Ad
Teaches you big words like fomosynthesis. Fomosynthesis. Fomosynthesis.
- [02:57]
Lingokids Advertiser
Yeah, close enough. And they want fun songs, videos and interactive games that help you grow, not.
- [03:02]
Child Voice in Lingokids Ad
Turn you into a zombie that bites other zombies and then the zombies take over the world and then fly to space and live on the moon and fly in rocket ships on planets with loads of candy.
- [03:14]
Lingokids Advertiser
Yep. Mango, kids, everything kids love. Download the app for free.
- [03:21]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
From wellness products to fragrances to the hair care many of us grew up using, Black women are routinely exposed to harmful chemicals and products marketed directly to us. So what do we do when our everyday routines are shaped by systems that often put our health at risk? These exposures don't happen in isolation. They build over time, contributing to serious and sometimes chronic health conditions that are deeply tied to environmental racism at a systemic level. But there are changes in solutions we can implement to curb these risks and that contribute to a healthier, longer life. Here to break all of this down is Dr. Tamara James Todd, epidemiologist and professor of Environmental Reproductive Epidemiology at Harvard University. Dr. James Todd directs the Environmental Reproductive Justice Lab, where she studies how chemicals and consumer products and our broader environment impact Black women's health across the lifespan. Her work not only exposes the inequities in these systems, but puts a focus on empowering communities with the knowledge and tools to reduce risk of harm. Today, we're unpacking what environmental racism really looks like, how it shows up in the products we use every day, and what it will take to protect Black women's health. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share it with us on social media using the hashtag tbginsession. Or join us over at our Patreon to talk more about the episode. You can join us at community.therapy for black girls.com here's our conversation.
- [04:57]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Thank you so much for joining us today.
- [04:58]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Dr. James Todd, thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here.
- [05:02]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Yeah. Thank you.
- [05:03]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So I wonder if you can take us back to little you and think back to Was there like a memory that you have of maybe before you were officially a scientist of noticing something different in the environment or a memory that really stuck with you related to the.
- [05:19]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Sure.
- [05:19]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
So I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and I feel like it was both the greatest place to grow up because people were kind. I enjoyed growing up with my classmates in Raytown schools, which is where I went to school. And it was a community that was a predominantly white space in which I went to school in. But I grew up in this little cul de sac that was just completely black neighborhood. And one of the things that my friends and I would notice as young girls is that we would go to school and be made fun of. We were, you know, kind of the fifth grade, sixth grade boys pulling the bra straps and so on. And we were more developed and had to have these conversations than like our white peers and feeling different and feeling othered already in that space made navigating that experience of going through puberty at an earlier age challenging. And so I think I've really carried that into my adult space. Maybe I didn't realize at the time that as someone who was an aspiring scientist and that really was trying just to enjoy learning signs that I was caring for that kind of what as a kid maybe have felt like as a traumatic experience. And when I first became aware of research studies that had looked at reasons or risk factors of early puberty, seeing a. That what I felt like as a kid being validated that indeed black girls were starting puberty earlier, that not only was that the case, this was also linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes both in the teen years and on through later life, including breast cancer risk. But that there might be something that we were exposed to in our environment, including hair products that contained harmful chemicals that might be contributing to the reason why we were seeing earlier puberty. And so that really for me connected my 1011 year old Tamara self with the 20 something Tamara self that was starting graduate studies in public health and epidemiology and having an aha moment that like there might be something to this and wanting to not only figure it out, but find solution for it.
- [07:52]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, I love when there's a very clear way that you're connecting like the past self to the present and future self. Right. Like there's it seems like a through line from your work to your childhood. So that's really cool. So there may not be a typical day, but what does maybe the day to day look like for an environmental reproductive epidemiologist?
- [08:13]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
So I love that you already noted there's not likely a typical day. Right. And that is very true. I would say that my day is filled with meeting different types of people, whether that is connecting with our students who are curious and and so excited to learn and make a difference in this world, to working with our support teams and staff members who are there to help us implement our research studies in science, to meeting with collaborators who are both here locally and all over the world at the same time, who are positioned to partner with us to do this work that really is inspired to make the world a healthier place. So a lot of meetings, a lot of reviewing papers, a lot of writing and a lot of generating and fostering new ideas that will help us to create and innovate solutions. I use that word a lot, solutions. And I do think the reason why I use that is because I want people to understand that science helps to make the world a healthier place through identifying sustainable and achievable solutions.
- [09:29]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Can you say more about, like, how the work that you're doing really shows up in real life in terms of protecting black women's health?
- [09:36]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Absolutely. So when I started doing this research about 25 years ago, there really wasn't an understanding about the fact that the way here in the United States our consumer products are in, particularly our personal care products are regulated, doesn't actually involve a company having to go through any vetting process. So a company can simply. We're interested in making a new hair product or hair oil. I mean, there's. In the last. I feel like the last five, 10 years, we see this, like, really take off of the natural hair product movement, and people are excited to see all of these different parties innovate in this space. But what we don't realize is just because it has landed on the shelf does not mean that it's been vetted, and it does not mean that it is safe for you. And so what we've done in the last 25 years is really brought attention to that issue, that personal care products, particularly products that are marketed to black women, have chemicals that are not always good for our bodies and particularly harmful chemicals. And people can say, well, everything's a chemical, or, you know, you have to make it with something. But I think also what the average person is not necessarily aware of, but there's been increasing awareness in this, is that here in the United States, we regulate around about a dozen different chemicals that are harmful to our body's health and that can be harmful in ways that from reproductive harms to harms for our brain and our brain health and so on. But there's scientific evidence that there are many more chemicals that need to be regulated. And so the same companies are adhering to standards in the European market based on science that comes from research like mine and others that really lead to regulations around 1300. So we went from about 13 here in the US to 1300 that are regulated or banned from use. And so the same company is producing a product that is different for the European market than what is here. And so one of the things that we've done is to make the public aware, importantly, making clinicians aware. Clinicians. Whether you're talking about a doula, Are you talking about an obstetrician or a pediatrician, a nurse, they are one of our most important communicators. Right. For health information. The work you're doing here, Dr. Joy super important to communicating health information. And so being able to make sure that people who are coming to get information have that information in their hands at their fingertips. We really tried in our lab to do a lot of work around making sure we communicate what is harmful, what are some safer alternatives that people can consider using oral strategies that people can use to find and identify safer products. And that really wasn't out there before. I know that. I didn't know. I thought that we regulate it better, but we don't. And the onus ends up falling on us. But really expanding that beyond us to thinking about health educators and that being a much broader community than I think most people think about and then thinking about retailers and businesses holding them accountable as well as.
- [13:06]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So, Dr. James, what is your understanding of why the US does not have stronger regulations around these kinds of products when so many other countries do?
- [13:16]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
I am not a policymaker and I don't want to profess to ever be. To be. To be one as far as an expert. But I do think it's just kind of embedded in our DNA. We're individualists. In some ways that makes us amazing innovators. Right. Like I have an idea and I get to take that idea and run with it. And in other ways it means that the trade off is that someone can bring something to market that could unfortunately harm the market, the people that are using those products. So I think we often don't want to offset that trade off and we will go for the innovation side of things as opposed to the. Without any kind of guardrails or very few. And there are consequences to doing that. So I do think trying to figure out a way to balance that is important.
- [14:10]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
And what you're talking about really kind of falls under this larger umbrella which is a large part of your work in terms of environmental racism. So for people who've not heard that term before, can you define that for us?
- [14:22]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Yeah. So environmental racism is a form of discrimination in which people are discriminated through place, through the products that they use, the air that they breathe, even the ambient temperatures that they're exposed to that are systematically occurring due to the individual's racial identity. And ways that that can kind of show up in the world is that there might be structural policies or governance in place that makes it difficult for people to not purchase land in certain places that have more access to trees or that within their neighborhoods they have less access to resources that are health promoting and there's more health harming things within their environment. And that can be inclusive of when we're talking about hair products, like how does that connect to hair products? One of our amazing doctoral students who's now gone on to do A postdoc, Dr. Marisa Chan, was really interested in this question of place based factors and the impact and role of environmental racism as it related to access and availability to safer hair products. And it turns out that in predominantly black communities as well as in general lower income communities, that there's less access to safer products. So if you go into a local big box store in a community that is a predominantly black community, for example, or you go into one of those large beauty supply stores, those stores are up to two times, maybe even sometimes higher, more likely to have products, hair products particularly, that have harmful chemicals in them that include these chemicals that impact and are associated with fibroids, pregnancy complications like preterm birth and so on, diabetes risk, higher risk of obesity and many conditions that impact black women. And so thinking about not just what do I use, but what is available to me, what do I have access to? Because I think oftentimes we say, oh, I can order it online, it's fine. But the average person is not actually ordering their personal care products. Some hair products, yes, but many of the ones that you use day to day, not so much. Or even things like toothpaste, lotion, deodorant, that's not usually being ordered online. We're getting it from our local stores and that does have impact on our health.
- [16:50]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
More from our conversation after the break. I'm Dr. Joy from the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. Ever been at the pharmacy counter and the pharmacist asks, do you have any questions? And suddenly your mind goes blank? That's exactly why you need to listen to beyond the script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jay Goodman, a board certified psychiatrist and health educator, this show takes you behind the counter to answer the questions you wish you'd asked, like which medications might not mix well, what vaccines you should consider before a big trip, and even those questions you were too embarrassed to say out loud. Each episode busts myths, decodes health trends and gives you real, trustworthy advice from the experts you see most. Your neighborhood CVS pharmacist. No white coats, no lectures. Just real talk, real answers and maybe a few laughs. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:55]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
Friday, kick off the Winter Olympics in style with the opening ceremony from Italy. Featuring a special performance by Mariah Carey. Celebrate the greatest athletes from around the globe as they come together to go for gold.
- [18:11]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Lipstick. Sensational.
- [18:13]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
- [18:16]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Ilia Malini, redefining the Sport, Friday at.
- [18:20]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
8 Eastern, 7 Central on NBC.
- [18:23]
Lingokids Advertiser
And Peacock, are you a parent who feels guilty about screen time?
- [18:27]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
No.
- [18:27]
Lingokids Advertiser
Well, no, not you, sweetheart, but your mommy and daddy do.
- [18:30]
Child Voice in Lingokids Ad
Why?
- [18:31]
Lingokids Advertiser
Because too many apps are filled with AI garbage, inappropriate videos and random content.
- [18:36]
Child Voice in Lingokids Ad
Like a dancing potato or worse.
- [18:39]
Lingokids Advertiser
That's what parents worry about. We're Lingokids and we're here to help parents out. Lingokids is the number one entertainment platform for young kids because kids love it and parents can trust it. They want something safe and fun. Yes, fun, but also something that actually.
- [18:54]
Child Voice in Lingokids Ad
Teaches you big words like fomosynthesis. Fomosynthesis. Fomosynthesis.
- [19:02]
Lingokids Advertiser
Yeah, close enough. And they want fun songs, videos, and interactive games that help you grow, not.
- [19:08]
Child Voice in Lingokids Ad
Turn you into a zombie that bites other zombies and then the zombies take over the world and then fly to space and live on the moon and fly in rocket ships on planets with loads of candy.
- [19:19]
Lingokids Advertiser
Yep. Mango kids, everything kids love. Download the app for free.
- [19:29]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
You know, and as an epidemiologist, you really are looking at, like, how repeated exposures over time accumulate. Right. And so when we see something like the Flint water crisis or the information that's coming out around AI data centers, we're really looking at, like, how is that impacting people over time? Can you say more about, like, what that looks like and like, how repeated exposures really do impact our health?
- [19:51]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Absolutely. I'm actually going to go back to this example, just that we were grounded in with the hair products. But I want folks to think about what are the other things that are in our environment that we're impacting with day in, day out. So the reason why I became really interested in hair products as an important risk factor for health disparities. And that includes a variety of health disparities ranging from early puberty to perimenopausal things such as hot flashes. Okay, so was really this case series. So this is where a doctor sees some really interesting cases throughout the their clinical practice. And in this case, this doctor saw four young girls that ranged in age from 4 months old to 4 years old. So it was a pediatrician, he was a pediatric endocrinologist. And the reason why he was seeing these girls was because they had all developed breast and pubic hair. So I said four months old to four years old. Okay. And if you think about, I have children too. And so I. You bathe the Baby, put lotion on the baby, or in some children, you might put a little bit of hair oil and brush their hair, whatever. But early on we start using products, all sorts of products, diaper cream, all of these things, diapers, wipes on our children. Those things contain chemicals. And in childhood, children metabolize. That means their bodies are processing those chemicals differently. Sometimes slower, sometimes more rapidly, but you're exposed. And so it turns out in this particular case series, it was hair products that the children were being exposed to. Once they figured this out, they contained different forms of estrogen and the parents stopped. Unbeknownst to the parents, these actually were not on the label. I think sometimes even people think, well, I can read the label and figure it out. And that is true to some extent. Yes. But I don't you think everybody should be a chemist to try to figure out and decipher this? Right. So long short, the pediatric endocrinologist recommended, let's stop using these products and see what happens. And the breasts regressed. That means the breasts went away and the pubic hair fell out. I mean, there are very few times that anything like that happens. But that goes to show that even at early ages, people are exposed to things that can change their bodies. Now, in that case, it was very extreme. Like a four month old having breast and pubic hair. That's extreme. You can visibly see it. But what you don't realize is that some of those changes are things that you can't see. And so you're being exposed. And even if it is being processed through your body pretty quickly, okay, I used it tomorrow and I use it the next day, or I used that product a week from now, and so on. And so you keep doing that. And you do that through childhood when people's brains are developing again, going back to the early puberty piece. You do that through adolescence when people, the reproductive system is now ramped up and so on. And you continue throughout life. And that constant and chronic exposure really can add up. It can send people on kind of a different trajectory. And I think about that in the context of one of the things that can happen is fat cell development. So you can turn your body's fat cell development on. And the more fat cells that are produced and the more we might eat. Because some of these things change our body's ability to say, I'm full. You don't realize you're full anymore. So now I have more fat cells and I'm eating more. And I keep doing that over time. What happens if you keep Eating and you have more fat cells, you see more obesity, and then you try to counter that with all sorts of things, but it doesn't quite work. And all of the issues with that, diabetes, heart disease, all of that. So we see these connections and links. Again, I gave the example of hair products and chemicals, but some of this is true. We know that extreme heat exposure over time has real impacts on people's health. We see links with earlier death and mortality. We see connections there. It also impacts mental health.
- [23:54]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Right.
- [23:54]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
We know that exposure to poor and contaminated water impacts our health. And some you mentioned, Dr. Joy, these data centers, they're contaminating our water. They're also costing us more. Right. They have a real impact on air pollution, which is linked to all sorts of things for black women. Polycystic ovarian syndrome, for example. We just published a paper in our group on this. And thinking about when you're exposed, were you exposed when you were developing in your mom's belly or your parents belly and is that contributing later or were you exposed later on or throughout your life? Course. So it, it does have implications. But there are things I don't, what I don't want to leave people with here is the worry of like, oh my goodness. Well, that means there are things people can do to help improve their health.
- [24:48]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So we definitely want to get to the solutions because as you were talking, I'm thinking like, I gotta go to read all of my labels, like, what am I using? What are the kids using? But are there certain products or certain chemicals or ingredients that you definitely want to kind of put on the radar for people that they would want to be mindful of that could show up in things like. So you've mainly been talking about like hair products, but are we talking about like lotions, soaps, other kinds of things that, you know, maybe seem pretty innocuous, but we really should be paying attention to?
- [25:18]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Yeah. So I often tell people I'm growing up, I was that kid that I'd stay at my grandmother's house from time to time. I open up the drawer that she'd have in her, her bedroom and she'd have all these perfumes. I love, loved perfume. I loved fragrance. I was also that teenager that was like there at Bath and Body Works or wherever store having, you know, I love fragrance. And yet one of the things I suggest to people now, now that I know more about this is you could be an amazing fragrance lover. Like, you might love lavender. That might be your thing for relaxing and trying to feel better. For example, and what I recommend to folks is reduce your fragrance exposure. So trying to wear perfumes and other fragrance products a bit less, it does help with a variety of, like reducing exposures to some of these harmful chemicals that are linked to adverse health outcomes that I've mentioned. Reproductive outcomes, mental health outcomes, interestingly enough as well. And what's interesting too is that oftentimes people say, well, I use essential oils, so this is not a problem for me. And I say they're not all the same. So lavender I mentioned, as well as tea tree oil, are two essential oils that have been shown to be estrogenic. In other words, they mess with your body's hormones. So you don't want to kind of day in, day out. And I said reduce, I didn't say eliminate because I think it's hard to eliminate things. But it does help to decrease your exposures. Black women have among the highest exposures to some of these harmful. They're called endocrine disrupting chemicals. A big name to just say that these are chemicals that mess with your body's hormones. And hormones regulate a lot in our body. They manage a lot of different functions. And when we mess with them, we don't actually get to have those functions operate or function do normal things for us. So long short, that's one thing I often say, big picture consumer products, you want to think about what you're storing your foods in, not microwaving and storing foods in plastic, for example, when possible, don't use a lot of plastics in your home. And thinking about, and I think a lot of people don't even realize this, that like those, like Glade plugins or other things that you might use, those are actually plasticizers. So to hold fragrance in a product, and it's not just Glade, just to be clear, like it's any of those like air freshener things to hold those in the product. And for them to actually work, they have to actually have these kind of chemicals in them that are known to be reproductive toxins. So thinking about ways that you can reduce both your personal use of fragrance, your home use of fragrance, steering clear of things, like many of the things that people are like, I love lavender. I love this, you know, trying to reduce some of the essential oil use that we know can be hormonally active, not all essential oils are the same. And trying to also be able to use some of the new technology that we have. Again, I go back to, I don't want to be a chemist. I'm not a chemist. And for the chemists out there, hooray. But for most of us, we are not. So considering using reading labels is helpful, but maybe you consider using apps like Hear folks talk about Yuka or Environmental Working groups Skin Deep app and being able to see, oh, this is what's in this product. This is what it could do. And making informed choices about, maybe I can use this one, but maybe I don't use this one too. Because we. We often don't use one product at a time. I think the average woman, for example, uses about 12 or so products a day. And expo is exposed to about 160 different chemicals every day. So they. The extent that we as black women who are big users of products and highly exposed to these chemicals, the extent that we can reduce that to some degree would be great. Effy.
- [29:18]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So as you're talking, I'd love to hear if there is a connection you've made in your work. Thinking about, like, just the history of what we've been taught about our bodies and being dirty. Right. It feels like there is a connection between smells and, like, wanting to be perfumed in the beauty industry that is so deeply entrenched, I think, in many black women's lives. So, like, the racism really runs even further, I think, than we sometimes imagine.
- [29:46]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Yeah.
- [29:46]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
So there's this. Both the body part and the home part. Right. So I say to folks, sometimes, like, when you think of beautiful, do you get a smell? Like when I asked you to define beauty? Or I feel, when I'm feeling particularly beautiful, what does that look or smell like? Right. And that could include things like straightened hair and makeup and putting on that fragrance or the clothes smell a certain way. Like, it's all of these things that we do to augment our bodies and change our natural appearance. And I'm not saying that that's bad. I love looking a certain way, you know, all of that. But that's also for our homes too. Right. What does clean smell like to you? And when I say clean, like somebody might get like, oh, the smell of lemon. The smell of this pine salt. Exactly. I like. I know what we use. When I was growing up, we were pine salt user. So thinking about all of that and what would it look like in the world to. To start changing that? What will it take? I remember when I first started wearing my hair natural. I did it long before this whole natural hair movement started, partly because I loved my curls. I was like, this is awesome. You know, I won't tell you the number. The product that I was. Products I was using To. To maintain those curls. But I really did embrace that long before. And the pushback, even from your own family, right? Your own family be like, why are you walking out of the house like that? So part of that change, like, part of the solution is as we as. As a people can support each other in our transitions to safer products, safer exposures, and be more open to, like, what that might look like and what that might smell like and what that might feel like. And you're 100% right, though, that a part of that is the systemic, the messages that we've gotten as people about what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to show up in the world. And it's beautiful to see that that's shifting. And I think we need to, like, lean into that moment and not be afraid to go back. And when we run into challenges, to, like, figure out as a. A way to innovate. One thing that we have done in our. Again, going back to Dr. Chan's work, because I really just want to highlight the amazing work that she has done as a multiracial woman, is to think about who should be at the table to help make change. So in the context of hair and hair products, it was not just thinking about policymakers, which oftentimes, in fact, if you ask scientists who should be at the table for a solution, it's going to be policymakers. It's us and policymakers. And what she asked was, she asked the community who's involved in solutions. And at the end of the day, what you're talking about, Dr. Joy, boils down to an issue of trust. And the messages that we've gotten leads us to not trust the prospect, anybody. It might be a false message, and I don't. So it was the community, it was the salon owners. It included scientists and policymakers, but it also really included thinking about the role of health communicators. And I go back to that. I know it started there, but, like, the work that you're doing, the influencers out there, that they are communicating information, the clinicians, they are communicating information. And. And so to the extent that we can educate different people that are in this discussion, it's going to be key and important to making change.
- [33:43]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Can you say a little bit more? I know there has been so much research that has come out around, like, relaxers. Of course, you know, so many of us grew up getting relaxers, and I think we're having very different conversations now, but I think now we're starting to see more of the numbers and like the impact of how relaxers and hair straighteners and different things like that have impacted people's health. Can you say more about what we've learned and what people might want to know about those products?
- [34:07]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Specifically, back in the 90s, there was a set of papers that came out really looking at the impact of relaxers and it was really getting at lye. Specifically they were interested in knowing whether or not a lie relaxer due to potential of burn and so on was having impact on at the time, like other health harms, previous work had focused in on like skin health. That was the primary focus, like looking at dermatology and so on. But these were the first kind of papers that were starting to look at, say for example, fibroids or breast cancer. And what has been really interesting to see is this awareness that it's not just lie. For example, as many of us know, like particularly those of us who've ever had a relaxer, you see the person or maybe ourselves, like we mix up the chemicals together and we can smell it. It has a particular kind of smell. And so this awareness that there's other chemicals. And so maybe back in, I think it was 2018, a paper came out that documented what were the different types of chemicals that were in hair relaxers and other hair products. And it turned out there were many different types of. Again, go back to these hormonally active chemicals. There are also asthma inducing chemicals. So in the black community, community, we also have higher rates of asthma, for example. And that work was actually done by Silent Spring Institute, I should say, as a part of us sharing a list of commonly used hair products from a study that I ran, the Greater New York Hair Product Study. But what that made people aware of is we should probably be looking at more than just lie. We should look at other things. And there was an awareness that these had formaldehyde releasing agents in them. Formaldehyde is a carcinogen. In other words, it's a cancer causing agent. WHO or the World Health Organization and others have noted this. And so this interest and curiosity around weight. Maybe we should look at, is there a link with breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, some of which are much more common among black women. Black women are using these products. More black women have higher exposure to some of these chemicals. And indeed that's what has been found in these studies that now have pointed to this. With that increased awareness, being able to say these companies may have known that they are putting chemicals in that could be harmful in holding companies accountable accordingly for that. So I think it's important that we're sitting in a moment in time where we become aware of that. But one thing I'll just note is the hair relaxers are on for a very short period of time. One of the things that we really have been trying to bring attention to is that going back to Dr. Joy, what you mentioned about chronic exposures, what about the maintenance products, what are about the products that we use, whether we're getting relaxers, whether we're doing natural hair that we're using day in, day out or week in week out that keep exposing us, our kids, our elders to these harmful products or chemicals and the implications on our health.
- [37:25]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
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- [38:32]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
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- [38:53]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Ilia Malinu, redefining the Sport, Friday at.
- [38:57]
NBC Winter Olympics Announcer
8 Eastern, 7 Central on NBC.
- [38:59]
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- [39:34]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
And you mentioned, you know, you want people not to kind of walk away feeling hopeless. I mean, because it can be very Overwhelming to think about, like, oh, my gosh, I got to read all these labels. I got to remove all these things. What are some steps that people can take to kind of start maybe minimizing? You said, like, cut back on their footprint in terms of maybe the products and things that they're using.
- [39:53]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Yeah. So there are safer products out there. So that's like a first. Like, I don't know, like, I don't know about you all, but, like, just that, like, I hope that that creates room to breathe. There are safer products out there. Is there room for more safer products?
- [40:06]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Yes.
- [40:07]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Is there opportunity and for innovation and holding companies accountable? Yes. So the kind of things that I often encourage people to do is we, many of us have phones. We use all sorts of apps on our phones. Download an app, get, find one that you really like. Some of the apps will actually, you scan a product in the store and they tell you, you know what, this, maybe try this other one. So they'll give suggestions and alternatives will give you an actual rating. Like, some people like seeing numbers. They like to see red, green, yellow. And so, like, again, I mentioned a couple. I'll go back and say things like the Environmental Working Group Skin Deep app. I also want to say that I have no affiliation with any of these organizations, but Yuka and Detox Me, these are different apps that folks can see and be mindful of. Reading labels helps. I will say again, in the United States, we do not require companies to have to disclose everything. Okay. So there are certain things that you will see on a label. For example, you might see something like paraben, like methylparaben or ethylparaben. And those are chemicals that are put into products to keep the bacterial growth down. Important. It's also important to know that if it's something you're going to be using all the time, daily, that those chemicals do impact the endocrine system. And so they've been linked to a number of different health outcomes. So you might want to think about that fragrance. Fragrance is actually hundreds of different chemicals. So you'll see fragrance on a package. It's many different things. And to hold the fragrance in are plasticizers, like these big words like phthalates and so on. And those are the chemicals that have been linked to, like, preterm birth, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, so preeclampsia and so on. And so just thinking about, maybe there's time periods that we use less of those we choose to during pregnancy, make a different choice, and so we can kind of team up Use our own ability to read the labels and say, okay, I'm not going to. I'm going to stay away from fragrance. That's fragrance. And I'm going to choose something else or using those apps. And then I mentioned some of these other things that people can do within their homes. Like there's ways to. I do not have time to do this, but if you so choose, I tell people, maybe choose one thing you can change. So for some people, it might be. I had a friend who was really inspired to change. I was not this person, but she was like, I'm gonna change my deodorant. I was like, great. So she started making her own deodorant. I did not have time to make my own deodorant, but I'm glad she chose one thing. So maybe your one thing might not be please don't go home. Or if you're at home, don't go to your linen closet, wherever you store your products and throw out all your products. Don't do that. But choose one thing that you might change in order to start moving the needle towards lower exposures.
- [43:03]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
You've mentioned several times that there is more space also to hold, like, companies and corporations accountable. What might that look like, Dr. James Todd? Is that voting with our dollars and, like, not buying these products? Writing letters to the companies? Like, what does, you know, holding them accountable actually look like?
- [43:18]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
I think it's all of those things. I think real innovation starts happening. And I'll give you an example of this. So maybe back in around, like, 2010 or so, my colleague and I reached out to a major manufacturer. I won't name who it was, but we reached out to a major manufacturer. We've looked at the market. The market is very green when it comes to products that are marketed towards white individuals and individuals who have straight and not textured hair. We don't see that for people of color, particularly black women and people who have very curly hair. We would love to work with you to innovate around this and to not just innovate around this, but to ensure that we are contributing to making products that are safer. So we really wanted to work with this major manufacturer to do so. And they said to us, there is no market for this. Black people will not buy safer products. It will cost more money, and they will not purchase it. I had two issues with this, or maybe even more than two, but I just. I want to highlight the two that came to my mind. One, we are one of the largest. We, meaning black women, are one of the largest consumers of personal care products and particularly the largest consumer of hair products. Like we will buy products, two, we will pay a lot for them. So I just was dumbfounded by what was being said and we kept trying and it just kind of didn't go anywhere. But then what happened? You start seeing black women take up arms with this and push for new products. Now a part of that wasn't really around safer products. It was around products that were marketed to natural hair. So we started seeing a push towards that. We also started seeing pop ups of companies that were marketing towards our children with safer products. And we did it ourselves. We saw the gap in the market and we said this is what we're going to do. Now everybody's going to start their own company. And we certainly have seen a huge boom in social media around people do it yourself and all of this. And certainly that's a thing. But I think a part of it is making sure that we do have money to spend on this. We can talk with our money. And if that means we're gonna purchase products that are safer and healthier for us being able to do so, so do your research. One, two, really, when I say hold companies accountable, I think when there's harm done, we often won't report it. It takes up time, it takes up issue. And there are companies that they were developed by a black woman and then sold and then I don't know about you, I've experienced this where then the product, I had itchy scalp and all that and I'm like, oh, never mind. I just go on to another product, right to that company, right to the federal government, right to the state government, right to your local government and start getting that done. Some of the biggest innovation that has happened around policy and regulation in this space is actually at the state level. So do not be afraid to get involved at the state level. One thing I'll bring up in this space is what's slowly happening across the country is a deregulation of the beauty industry through bills that are being passed to make it not necessary for people to be licensed. And on the want to do hair and on the one hand, like, sure, it can maybe innovate around, but economics and that's important. But it's also important. Hair is a part of our body. What we put on our hair is a part of our body. We're seeing that with braiding hair, for example, right? Like containing lead and other like harmful chemicals. It sits on our scalp, it's absorbed through our body. We put this on young children. We know lead can actually impact young children's health, impacts all people's health, but particularly young children. And so this is problematic. If we don't have people in place that know about this, it can have real harm in our community. So being able to advocate at the state level, going to your state legislators, seeing who was involved in the passing of these bills, and really making sure that people see and hear from you about the potential health harms and impacts of these laws and policies can make a real difference in the world.
- [47:45]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
What gives you hope about this work?
- [47:47]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Dr. James Todd When I started this 25 years ago, I remember people having no clue what I was talking about. What are you saying? You want to look at consumer products and chemicals and women's health? What does that even mean? And that you're interested in how this impacts health disparities. We don't know what you're talking about. In the hair product space, it was people use shampoo and conditioner. They wash it out and it's done. What do you say? And I'm like, that's, that's not my lived experience. I sure, I use shampoo and conditioner, but I also use lists of other products. I am inspired and I see hope in conversations that people are having about an awareness that they have about environmental factors in women's health. The fact that we can have this conversation. Dr. Joy and that it's becoming a more mainstream conversation, that people are aware that it's not just what you eat, it's not just the water you drink or the air you breathe, but it's also the products that you use that can have real impact on your health.
- [48:51]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
I have learned so much in talking with you just for this brief time. I feel like there are so many more questions I have for you, but cannot take up all of your time. For sure. But where can we stay connected with your work? Dr. James TA what is your website as well as any social media handles that you'd like to share?
- [49:06]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
First of all, thank you again for having me. It's been wonderful. You can feel free to stay connected with me. I can be found on Harvard Chan School of Public Health's website under the James Todd Lab. We are also the Environmental Reproductive Justice Lab, so you can feel free to Google us that way and find us there. You can follow some of the work that we've done through the Beauty Justice Podcast, which is available on Apple and Spotify platforms. And we are also present on social media through the J Media Todd Lab. So we would love to have you all continue to connect and reach out to us through those different platforms.
- [49:42]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Perfect.
- [49:43]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
We'll make sure to include all of that information in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I appreciate it.
- [49:48]
Dr. Tamara James Todd
Thank you so much for having me. Have a wonderful rest of the day.
- [49:54]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
Now don't go throwing everything in your bathroom away, y'. All. Remember, baby steps and small changes are a huge benefit to your health in the long run. I learned so much from this conversation and I'm happy that she was able to join us today to learn more about Dr. James Todd and her work. Be sure to check out the show notes@thristyforblackgirls.com session 449 and don't forget to text two of your girls right now and tell them to check out the episode. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for the podcast? If you have topics you'd like us to discuss, drop us a message at Memo FM Therapy for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind. We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory@therapyforblackgirls.com directory don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls and join us over in our Patreon for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content, and much more. We can't wait to see you there. You can join us at community.therapy for black girls.com this episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Inde Chubu and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y' all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care.
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- [52:15]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
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