THE Ministry of Health said Tuesday that while it is very likely that hair dye leads to allergies, the link between hair dye and cancer is unproved.

It warned that the public should carefully read labels and instructions of the hair dye products before they dye their hair.

The ministry said most ingredients of hair dye products contain allergenic chemicals and allergic reactions occur according to the sensitivity of the consumer's body, which might range from partial allergy to large-scale allergy.

An official with the ministry cited a research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, that there's no sufficient evidence to prove the link between hair dye and carcinogenicity.

He also cited the findings of the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR), a program supported by the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA) in the United States, that the commonly used chemical hair dye, paraphenylene-diamine (PPD), leads to allergies, but animal tests and epidemiological data show that PPD does not lead to malformation or cancer.

Last week, State media reported that the death of a Chinese woman from leukemia might be linked to her long-term use of hair dye. The Beijing Daily Messenger reported that chief doctor of the hematology department in Beijing Friendship Hospital found that the patient's frequent dyeing of her hair, about once every three months, might have caused the leukemia.

Wang quoted mainland researchers who found that people dyeing their hair were 3.8 times more likely to develop leukemia, because PPD could enter the bloodstream through the scalp.

Editor: Wing