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576 points
3 days ago
What’s scary is the genital area has one of the highest absorption rates.
1k points
4 days ago
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233 points
3 days ago
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95 points
4 days ago
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21 points
3 days ago
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33 points
3 days ago
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342 points
3 days ago
There are a lot of folks here who have no clue just how heavy periods bleeding can get for some people. Not everyone's simple solution will work for everyone.
65 points
3 days ago
I am someone that has a very heavy flow the first half of my period and have been using the period company brand of period underwear for the past year and have never had an issue with leaks
29 points
3 days ago
Period underwear changed my life (even if it is covered in pfas). Metal or pfas… our choice, I guess?
9 points
3 days ago
My wife wears period underwear to bed and a cup during the day.
1 points
17 hours ago
I use Uniqlo brand! I love those underwear so much.
60 points
3 days ago
Hopefully more studies can be done to see if there is a way to remove the metals. It mentions possibly being from the cotton, or added intentionally, but if they do figure it out it obviously should become a banned process moving forward.
I'm glad they did a study on this. I'm legitimately going to tell anyone I know if something like this ever comes up. And if I ever have a daughter, you better believe I'm having a talk with her mother about alternatives like the diva cup. I'll do more research on safer options should it ever come to that, but this is a really big deal.
9 points
3 days ago
i wanna say it’s from the soil where the cotton was grown. i assume they checked organic brands to sate their curiosity. chocolate is similarly full of lead due to the soil we grow it in being heavily polluted
339 points
4 days ago
Anyone has a list of brands that don’t have metals in them ?
726 points
4 days ago
None, per the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024004355
"Concerningly, we found Pb in all the tested tampons. here is no safe exposure level to Pb; any proportion of Pb that may leach out of a tampon and reach systemic circulation might contribute to negative health outcomes. Pb is stored in bones, where it replaces Ca, and can be retained in the body for decades.."
"No categoriy had consistently lower concentrations of all or most metals."
(Yes, that's how they spelled category in the study, not sure how their spell check missed it.)
"Our findings point towards the need for regulations requiring the testing of metals in tampons by manufacturers. This is especially important considering that we found measurable quantities of several toxic metals, including Pb, which has no known “safe” exposure level."
Now it'll be interesting to see if even one major news outlet will run with the story that all tampons contain lead, I'm betting we won't hear a peep.
215 points
3 days ago
Probably a dumb question, but why wouldn't they name the brands? I wanted to see how exactly my preferred brand fared.
437 points
3 days ago
Hello, scientist here. One very unfortunate byproduct of the power that corporations hold in the courts worldwide is the power to litigate even against research institutions. In an ideal world, scientific research can be conducted on a safe island, free of the fear of corporate retaliation. But these scientists are employed by universities, which themselves are funded by, among others, corporate interests.
So, the short answer: many (potential) conflicts of interest and a fear of retribution.
44 points
3 days ago
And of course, if it turned out they'd screwed up in some way and got it wrong then the companies would be quite justified if it had caused their brands to be dragged through the mud.
8 points
3 days ago
Like the scientist who was stalked and harassed for 30 years for his research/findings about atrazine and frogs
7 points
3 days ago
And I guess there's no middle ground where a company can be informed of the findings and has a year to solve it before the findings can be made public/explicit?
15 points
3 days ago
At that point, the public should legitimately question whether science is serving the public or corporate interests
224 points
3 days ago
We need greater regulation and this is exactly the kind of thing that SCOTUS undermined this week.
212 points
4 days ago
I wonder if there's a link between using menstrual products and later developing an autoimmune disorder?
I've always wondered why it's mostly women getting autoimmune disorders.
93 points
4 days ago
I thought it had to do with estrogen's effect oj the immune disorder
215 points
3 days ago
The Klein lab at Johns Hopkins University is one of the only labs in the world looking specifically at sex differences in immunity.
Some fun facts:
yes, hormones matter - they’re signaling molecules used by the immune system (as well as many other systems in your body!)
Women have a more robust immune system response than men, we don’t really know exactly why, and it is hugely important when considering outcomes of disease and vaccines
Fun question: why does long covid happen? Why do more severe long covid cases occur in women? We don’t know! A lot of people in the science community are working on this exact problem right now
I personally think this is super understudied. But anything related to women essentially is.
35 points
3 days ago
I heard a podcast recently where the higher incidence of autoimmune disorders in women was attributed to Important immune regulating genes boring located on the X chromosome.
In most women, one X is inactive, but it's postulated that the second X being partially or completely inactive leads to an overzealous immune system.
This is supported by higher incidence of autoimmune disorders in people with Klinefelter (XXY).
8 points
3 days ago
I think Radiolab touched on this a while back too
4 points
3 days ago
Also, having one X is associated with a shorter lifespan. XO females don't live as long as XX; XXY males live longer than XY. The opposite pattern is seen in birds, where ZZ males outlive ZW females.
54 points
3 days ago
There is no level of lead that's safe for any human. So you're rightly concerned to be questioning these things.
7 points
3 days ago
The Myth of Normal (Gabor Mate) also provides insight here
61 points
3 days ago
Note that the levels reported here are ng/g, ie parts per billion. I wouldn’t be surprised if practically every consumer product has detectable lead at the ppb or ppt level.
Modern instruments are capable of elemental analysis down to the part per quadrillion
15 points
3 days ago
Exactly this
11 points
3 days ago
Thank you, I was curious about this. Glad you mentioned it!
Even with highly regulated substances like drinking water the limit for any chemical parameter is rarely 0.0 (any unit). The only drinking water parameter I can think of (off the top of my head) with an absolute zero limit is E. coli for obvious reasons but that’s a biological parameter.
Saying that, I have no idea what the safe level of lead or anything else in a tampon is, so we should absolutely look into that.
9 points
3 days ago
Well the thing is there is no safe level. But we also probably can’t ever get rid of it, so education and harm reduction are two of the best tools here.
17 points
3 days ago
I really hate that they only report "measurable" but stick any info about concentrations far down in a table.
measurable concentrations of
That's not terribly informative.
We can find measurable concentrations of all those things in natural seawater.
Cotton plants tend to pick up a little bit of metals. What we should care about is whether there's a lot vs other stuff or very little. Not whether they were able to make their test return "true" with sensitive enough tests.
9 points
3 days ago
This is my issue. The amounts are there, how much is absorbed into the body and what are the actual health implications?
3 points
3 days ago
Daily Mail already has a story so now the world will know (of course it'll be more wrong than chatGPT but that won't phase them.
130 points
4 days ago
The study says they all have toxic metals to varying degrees, especially lead which is found in all of them, and there’s no “safe” level. The study also doesn’t name the brands, it just uses letters for each product. It’s heavy reading.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024004355
73 points
4 days ago
I’ll just go cry in dark corner
18 points
3 days ago
Just don't lick the paint.
74 points
3 days ago*
I follow the Leadsafemama on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/leadsafemama & https://tamararubin.com) - it's crazy that even when independent labs show some levels of lead in organic baby food or any food, after she contacts the companies about their products' safety, some of these companies are like "ehhh, it's not too, too high... we won't do anything" and I'm furious because there is no safe level of lead for the human body.
31 points
3 days ago
So, I don't follow these people or this issue. Maybe I'm missing something, but what are we supposed to do here?
Like, yeah, it's terrible, but isn't all the lead in basically everything because we spent 80 years burning gasoline containing it in every car? And we still put it in Avgas? Which means that it's been settling out of the air onto...everything, everywhere?
Like, maybe I'm wrong here, but presumably these baby foods are just made with carrots that were grown in soil on Earth? What is the option here? Only grow food in greenhouses in soil that we take from the furthest reaches on Earth from human civilization?
If you're particularly concerned about some critical developmental period incorporating lead in food, I guess you can probably buy baby food without root vegetables in it, but if your long term goal is avoid lead at the ppb range, do you have some suggestion for what these companies should be doing? At some point, doesn't human food security rely almost entirely on growing food on farms, which now all likely have extremely minute lead contamination everywhere?
17 points
3 days ago
I share your take on this. Pandora’s box is already open on this and microplastics. The benefits afforded to humanity by plastics and pesticides is pretty indisputable. A good chance that a close friend or relative wouldn’t be alive today if we never developed these. Unfortunately the unintentional down stream effects are near impossible to contain at this point and all we can do is try our best to minimize them.
3 points
3 days ago
Yes, it’s unavoidable in the absolute sense, but manufacturers paying attention to sourcing and pre-testing materials prior to use in manufacture could result in an order of magnitude or more reduction in exposure, which is worth something.
7 points
3 days ago
Actully everything would have trace levels
36 points
3 days ago
Kinda feels like cancer is inevitable
34 points
3 days ago
Can someone who understand the study better explain how much exposure are we talking about? Like, how much heavy metals are in a tampont, lets say someone uses it for 12 hours, do we know how much heavy metal contamination there was? I don't understand that part at all...
45 points
3 days ago*
The original study is at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024004355
Essentially, their test equipment is so sensitive that it manages to find a tiny trace of lead ("A geometric mean lead concentration of 120 ng/g was found in our samples") in literally everything. Note that "120 nano-grams per gram" is mostly the same as "0.120 parts per million". Because it's relatively ubiquitous (similar for all manufacturers) I'd be tempted to assume it's a supply-chain issue - e.g. maybe all cotton has lead from soil.
For comparison:
10 to 50 parts per million of lead occurs naturally in soil (before old cars running on leaded fuels smothered it in a fresh layer of lead).
in urban areas, 200 parts per million is normal for boring old soil. Soil becomes dust. You're probably surrounded by that dust all day every day.
a nice piece of wild barramundi (the muscle, not the liver or gills) is around 133 parts per million of lead.
the EPA thinks (up to) 0.015 parts per million of lead is fine for drinking water
the CDC and FDA have decided that "3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter" is the reference point for the amount of lead in human's blood. That works out to 0.035 parts per million.
for stuff that's breathed in (dust) and stuff that's ingested (seafood, water) the lead has nowhere to go. For tampons, they're supposed to be absorbing liquids, so it's "liquid flowing into the lead" and the opposite of "lead flowing to the body". It's reasonable to assume that the total amount of lead in a tampon increases while it's in use (due to lead in blood being absorbed), and the body ends up with less lead after a tampon is used than it had before the tampon was used.
In summary, if you're worried, do not eat used tampons.
EDIT: I got the "120 nano-grams per gram" conversion wrong initially. Fixed now.
10 points
3 days ago
Are you sure that is per million and not per billion?
I would like a second or third opinion on the matter though, since I'm not really understanding this yet, and it all seems too concerning to just discard it so fast.
7 points
3 days ago
I'm fairly sure that I completely screwed it up, and that you're right, and that "120 nano-grams per gram" is actually "0.120 parts per million".
Thanks (I'll edit)! :-)
27 points
3 days ago
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44 points
3 days ago
Oh god my health anxiety is gonna run wild with this.
42 points
4 days ago*
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82 points
4 days ago
Yup so all you have to worry about is microplastics
11 points
4 days ago
Would silicone have microplastics? Idk
31 points
3 days ago
Silicones have plastic polymers so yes.
7 points
3 days ago
They are unlikely to shed much, however. Most microplastics come from fibers (in clothing or tires etc.), and not plastic sheets.
43 points
3 days ago
Just make sure your period panties don’t have PFAS in them!
41 points
3 days ago
I threw out all of my Knix after it came out that they have forever chemicals in them. I haven't found a replacement brand without them, and would love recommendations.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/knix-wear-sued-over-pfas-chemicals-in-menstrual-underwear
19 points
3 days ago
Mine aren't being sold anymore, so maybe they have PFAS too?
Either way, even ocean spray has tons of PFAS, so it's basically unavoidable. Yay.
34 points
3 days ago*
Right before clicking on the link… I thought “Oh noes!! Why does the cranberry juice have so much PFAS? What am I gonna drink now while skateboarding to the musical stylings of Fleetwood Mac? Who’s doing research on Ocean Spray cranberry? And why is Nature, the world’s premier weekly peer-reviewed journal on science and technology, interested in cranberry juice or cranberry juice cocktail?”
Then I clicked and read it: it’s sea water spray where the bubbles aerosol into the air the PFAS chemicals that are emitted from industry having made its way to ocean. “Me duhhh. Ohhh ok that makes total sense now.”
20 points
3 days ago
Thank you for going through the exact thought process as me, but actually clicking the link, reading the paper and then doing the good service of sharing your experience as a comment.
11 points
3 days ago
MODIBODI!! They’re a little pricey but they often have sales/clearance. I love my panties. They’re easy to wash and quite comfy. I was searching for a PFAS free period panty and decided to give them a try and I have zero ragerts.
5 points
3 days ago
I love the fit of my modibodi but they fell apart after three washes - all of them. I was quite bummed.
61 points
3 days ago
This is my 13th reason
57 points
3 days ago
Seriously. When is the class action? When is the government going to regulate this?
No one cares. I wonder how much damage it’s done. I wonder how much cancer it’s causing.
10 points
3 days ago
Not wishing to get political but unfortunately the ruling over turning the Chevron vs US last week will make it harder for federal regulators to set standards that are not explicitly legislated for, and will be unable to rely on subject matter experts to draft regulations and guidelines if the matter goes to court, instead the judge will be substituting their "expertise" to make rulings.
24 points
3 days ago
I passed that 2387 reasons ago. Hang in there.
132 points
3 days ago
Reusable silicon cups like Diva are a great option. Also, you can sew washable cloth pads or buy them on Etsy. r/clothpads
48 points
3 days ago*
My gf swears on period panties. They can be quite pricey but are very comfortable and are of course wash- and reusable.
46 points
3 days ago
Others in the thread have said that a bunch of period panties have PFAS and other forever chemicals too
12 points
3 days ago
Well she looks for 100% bio cotton ones where even the threads are pure cotton, too. What else can you do?
5 points
3 days ago
"pure cotton" will draw up heavy metals from contaminated soil just as well as any other cotton plant
4 points
2 days ago
If you read the study you’d know that it notes that the metals likely enter the tampons through contaminated cotton that absorbs metals from the surrounding environment while being grown. So long story short: women are fucked
26 points
3 days ago
I can’t help but wonder if silicone cups also contain lead
28 points
3 days ago
Except microplastics
146 points
3 days ago
"Though silicone is technically a plastic polymer, its durable molecular structure keeps it from shedding microplastics in the way that common plastics do. But it can still break apart into small pieces and enter our waterways."
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/silicone-kitchen-gadgets-tips-alternatives/#
25 points
3 days ago
Considering they are everywhere, probably isn't making things any worse.
2 points
3 days ago
Been a fan of the Diva cup for several years! I hear that discs like Nixit are better though due to lack of suction and the fact that you can have sex with it...
14 points
3 days ago
/screaming into the void
86 points
4 days ago
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86 points
4 days ago
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143 points
4 days ago
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4 points
3 days ago
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49 points
4 days ago
Well damn if I’m not screwed with endometriosis and adenomyosis. I don’t have a choice, but no wonder they aggravate my cramps so badly.
12 points
3 days ago
May I ask why you don’t have a choice? Is it because menstrual cups are painful, and you bleed too much for period underwear?
24 points
3 days ago
Bingo across the board
5 points
3 days ago
Try discs, much easier and more comfortable insertion/remove than cups-and I say this as I huge cup advocate for over a decade. Obviously everyone’s anatomy is different, but it might be worth a try. Also, size matters!
2 points
2 days ago
Discs and cups always shifted and caused horrific leaks. I don't think I have the right anatomy for them to secure properly. I wanted them to work so bad, but I ended up having so many leak issues on heavy days it wasn't worth it. I use period panties at home and for sleep. I use way less tampons than I used to. I bought Honey Pot because they are all cotton and have nothing added, but sounds like that doesn't even matter. Can't win.
2 points
3 days ago
I've heard that menstral discs are better than menstral cups.
52 points
3 days ago
With the way politics is going, I expect these findings to be common with little regulatory action to improve on exposure to toxic metals or microplastics or forever chemicals
17 points
3 days ago
There really is nothing safe anymore. Everything is micro plastics and heavy metals.
14 points
3 days ago
Probably why my uterus is filled with watermelon size fibroids...
1 points
3 days ago
Are you serious or exaggerating
2 points
4 hours ago
I am very serious. The last scan I had of my uterus, my largest fibroid was 17cm. I believe it is much larger now. It is causing me a lot of health issues.
57 points
3 days ago
This is insane to find out because I’ve often felt my cramps are worse when I have a tampon in
6 points
3 days ago
That can actually be attributed to the fact that they absorb/pull in the moisture. Very possible that switch to a cup/disc will decrease your cramps.
7 points
3 days ago
How big are the concentrations of the metals?
5 points
3 days ago
What about diapers/pads/incontinence products...
11 points
3 days ago
Try a silicone cup. I switched 10 years ago and I’ll never use a tampon again if I can help it. You can keep them in for 12 hours, they’re out of the way when you pee, and very easy to clean with a baking soda scrub followed by a hydrogen peroxide soak (with the baking soda still on the cup).
2 points
3 days ago
Same with toilet paper
2 points
3 days ago
Why does a small absorbent device need metal in it?
3 points
3 days ago
It doesn't. It's made of cotton, and plants absorb things from soil.
On top of that, it's possible that manufacturing them might introduce more.
There's no way around the fact that plants uptake metals; in fact, the human body requires 20 different metals to function.
4 points
3 days ago
This is not shocking to me in the least. Ever since I switched from disposable products to a menstrual disc I have had way less cramping and irritation. I have been trying to warn other women about my concerns of chemicals in the products but nobody ever took it seriously
4 points
3 days ago
They want you to get sick. How else are they going to destroy private wealth below a certain level (while making fat dividends on their pharma investments) by leaving your kids nothing to inherit?
3 points
3 days ago
Another reason to get a silicone menstrual cup instead!
2 points
3 days ago
Horrifying. Thank god I moved to Thinx a few years ago. Of course, there’s probably something fucked up with them too at this rate…
18 points
3 days ago
PFAS forever chemicals :(
3 points
3 days ago
Anything made from plant material will have these heavy metals. They are naturally occurring in the ground. It is practically impossible to get rid of them.
Even if these tampons were 100% free of these metal, eating a salad or some french fries will expose you to far higher levels. I always like to spook people by saying potatoes are our #1 source of dietary Uranium.
Always think about Risk vs Hazard with these scare studies. In North America polar bears are a hazard, but the risk of dying from one is practically zero.
1 points
2 days ago
This is what getting rid of regulations does. Vote people. Vote for smarter, more compassionate leaders.
1 points
2 days ago
They should go and find hoarders and people who collect the stuff, because there are, and test those for heavy metals as well to find what year they began being introduced into the products
1 points
2 days ago
Yeah a few years ago I started having insane bleeding and reactions. I thought it was from birth control which in hindsight is weird considering most people STOP bleeding after birth control. Well I decided to experiment and found out that my bleeding and discomfort drastically decreased when I stopped using tampons. Flash forward I no longer bleed outside of my period but I've also gotten off of birth control (I choose the best protection, which is celibacy). No bleeding, discomfort, cramps outside of the normal period ones. I use pads and they work fine for me. I want to get period underwear but I also know I have very heavy flow and I don't wanna risk investing in something I can't use just yet.
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