57 lawsuits against L'Oreal, other hair relaxer manufacturers consolidated in Illinois federal court

Fifty-seven lawsuits alleging that hair relaxer products sold by L'Oreal USA Inc and two India-based firms cause cancer and other health problems will be consolidated before US District Judge Mary Rowland in Chicago,

The Chicago federal court will streamline discovery efforts and other pretrial issues for the cases, according to the order.

The lawsuits, which have been filed in federal courts across the country, alleged that the companies knew about the dangerous chemicals in their products but marketed and sold them anyway.

The cases name the US subsidiary of L'Oreal SA and subsidiaries of India-based companies Godrej SON Holdings Inc. and Dabur International Ltd.

Representatives for the companies opposed the centralization of the cases.

L'Oreal said it is confident in the safety of its products and that lawsuits against it have no legal merit.

The claims come in response to a National Institutes of Health research that was published in October and revealed that women who used the products frequently had a greater than doubled risk of developing uterine cancer.

The panel's decision, according to Diandra Debrosse Zimmermann of DiCello Levitt, who filed the initial case after the study's publication, "recognized the clear benefits of centralizing the hair relaxer litigation," and she anticipates that many more companies will do the same in the upcoming weeks.

As the goods are often promoted to women of color, Zimmermann expects hundreds of women may end up suing over them.