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Actually, we became interested in nail salon workers because of Asian Health Services.
We knew that a lot of the nail salon workers were actually Vietnamese immigrants and a
number of them were patients of Asian Health Services. They were coming into the clinic
and presenting health symptoms such as irritations in the skin and difficulty breathing. You
see these women working long hours, working really hard, working really closely with these
products that contain what smell like really awful chemicals. When you walk into a salon
you really sense the smells. You can imagine a worker having to breathe in these compounds
all day long. We always think about these workers in any
field as canaries in the mine. They're going to be exposed first, the health problems are
going to appear in them first. And with some of the chemicals, knowing that they can actually
affect a woman's menstrual cycle, affect a woman's hormonal system, we really thought
well breast cancer is a hormonally mediated cancer. And for women this is a big deal,
if it changes their reproductive cycle, if it changes any of that, chances are it will
affect their breast cancer risk. So for us making that link between workplace exposure
and long term health effects like breast cancer is something that you have to do.
Asian Health Services is the fiscal sponsor of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative.
It has helped us to move forward a lot of policies such as the San Francisco Nail Salon
Recognition Ordinance and its also been really important to the nail salon community because
it creates an understanding that these are issues that need to be addressed and we use
that to also help empower nail salon community members.
What’s really comforting is seeing tax money go towards important research programs such
as the California Breast Cancer Research Program. Right now theres a federal safe cosmetics
act on the table where we have brought along salon owners and workers to testify to congressional
staff about the importance of regulating the cosmetics industry. I think the fact that
we partnered with Asian Health Services, Asian Health Services being part of the community,
the word got out that there was a lot of concern for the health of the workers.
Often when you work with a community you feel accountable to that community. You can't just
do the research and say it will come out in five years. They'll be waiting as soon as
they participate in the study they'll be waiting to hear from you. And we really believe in
that, we really want to get back to them with some answers.