There was a short period, a couple of weeks ago, when it felt like every day there was a new “panic headline.” My Instagram DMs and email inbox filled with “Is this true?!” and “Talk me off the ledge, please!”
I often respond to these in real time on Instagram. A 60-second story can be enough to say “Move on with your day!” but often not enough to really explain why you should disregard these headlines or get into the process of what I look for in evaluating them. This “explaining why” is the core of ParentData, so I’m going to unpack recent panic headlines in a bit more detail here.
The goal is twofold: first, if you’re still worried about this particular panic headline, you can dial that down. And second, to give you some questions to ask yourself before you panic with future headlines.
What’s the claim? A new paper tested a wide variety of tampons and found that many of them had detectable levels of metals like arsenic and lead.
Most important issues: No evidence to suggest there are any health impacts; limited mechanisms.
Details: This is a simple and well-done paper. The authors took a set of tampons (from 14 brands and 18 product lines), broke them down, and analyzed them for a set of 16 heavy metals. This is a basic chemistry problem.
When the authors do this, they find detectable levels of all of the chemicals in the tampons. This includes lead, arsenic, and cadmium. They tested both organic and non-organic tampons and found that those differed in which metals dominated but not in a predictable direction (for example, non-organic tampons had more lead; organic had more arsenic). The possible source of the metals varies and isn’t always clear — in some cases they are known additives, used for odor control.
The paper finds metals in tampons. However, it is unclear whether this metal will be absorbed systemically. For something like lead: we know that if you drink water with lead, it’s absorbed (this is the source of most dangerous lead exposure). But handling lead isn’t a significant exposure source, and we really do not know if it is absorbed in the vagina. If it is, the amounts are likely very small.
Big picture: This is a good paper! But it isn’t able to draw a direct link to human health, making it exploratory at best. Throwing out your tampons would be an overreaction (although if you did have that overreaction, this post covers some other menstrual options).
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Just authored a statement through our professional college, American College of Medical Toxicology, that agrees with you! https://www.acmt.net/news/acmt-position-statement-no-evidence-that-tampons-cause-metal-poisoning/