The Food and Drug Administration announced that it’s launching a research project to research the potential impact of toxic metals in tampons, raising concerns concerning the products utilized by thousands and thousands of ladies within the United States
A recent study found a wide range of metals in greater than a dozen tampon brands, including mercury, arsenic and lead.
The FDA said the study will help higher understand the potential effects and determine whether the metals harm women. Understanding that is critical: Up to 80% of women and girls who menstruate use tampons for nearly per week every month for many years.
The FDA said on Tuesday that while the study Led by a UC Berkeley researcher and published in July, Although metals were present in some tampons, the study “did not examine whether metals are released from tampons during use.”
“In addition, it has not been tested whether metals are released during tampon use, absorbed by the vaginal mucosa, and enter the bloodstream. Therefore, FDA commissioned an independent literature review and initiated an internal laboratory study to evaluate metals in tampons,” the FDA said in a press release.
One of the important thing questions might be whether and in what quantities metals leak out of the tampons and are absorbed by the body.
The current study published within the journal Environment International, The researchers tested tampons for his or her concentrations of 16 metals: arsenic, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, mercury, nickel, lead, selenium, strontium, vanadium and zinc. They tested 30 tampons from 14 different brands sold within the US and Europe. These included organic and non-organic tampons, branded products and generic store brands.
The brands tested weren’t named within the report, but researchers found that metals were present in all sorts of tampons examined. Lead concentrations were higher in non-organic tampons, while arsenic concentrations were higher in organic tampons.
The researchers identified that further research is required to higher understand the danger for ladies.
The findings are particularly concerning since the vagina has a better potential for absorbing chemicals than the skin elsewhere on the body and may result in system-wide exposure. Chronic exposure to metals has been found to extend the danger of a wide range of health problems, including heart disease, dementia, infertility, diabetes and cancer. In addition, metals can harm the health of the mother and the event of the fetus.
Given its potential to pose a major health risk, this area is surprisingly under-researched.
Main creator Jenni A. Shearstona postdoctoral fellow on the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, said she believes her research was the primary to measure metals in tampons.
The researchers found that metals can get into tampons in a variety of ways: The cotton material could have absorbed the metals from water, air, soil or nearby contaminants (for instance, if a cotton field was near a lead smelter), or some might have been added intentionally during manufacturing as a part of a pigment, bleach, antibacterial agent or in one other production process.
After the study was published, Dr. Cherie Hill, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Emory Healthcare, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she was very surprised to learn that these findings were only now coming to light.
“We heard about heavy metals in other sources like water and clothing, and I just thought, 'Why didn't we look at tampons sooner?'” she said.
Hill said she doesn’t consider women should “throw away all their tampons,” however the study did provide some alarming results that will make some women think twice about continuing to make use of tampons. She said more research is urgently needed to grasp the impact.
“We need to know what is going into our bodies and what impact it has on our health,” she said.
“The paper says all tampons contain lead, and we don't know if there is a safe amount of lead that should be put in the body,” she said. “Some people may say, 'Because I don't know the effects, I want to avoid it.'”
But even with alternatives resembling menstrual cups and silicone period underwear, there are doubts concerning the safety, and more research is required on these products, too, she said. Many brands of menstrual pads contain elevated levels of chemicals which have been linked to developmental and reproductive harm, based on a Study from 2019 within the journal Reproductive Toxicology.
Concerns about tampons have existed for many years. In 1980, scientists confirmed fears that superabsorbent tampons were linked to toxic shock syndrome.
The FDA has not provided a timeline for releasing its results.
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