Roughly half of the world’s inhabitants will expertise menstruation sooner or later of their lives. Disposable merchandise akin to tampons and pads are a number of the hottest merchandise used world wide to handle menstrual circulate.
Sadly, analysis has proven that many private care merchandise, akin to shampoos, lotions, nail polish, and menstrual merchandise, include dangerous chemical substances. Objects utilized in or close to the vagina require particular care as a result of they arrive into contact with the vaginal mucosa (the moist tissue lining the vagina that secretes mucus). These tissues can take in some chemical substances very effectively.
Individuals use menstrual merchandise 24 hours a day, a number of days a month for a few years. Tampons are used internally and are surrounded by permeable vaginal mucous membranes for as much as eight hours at a time.
I am an environmental epidemiologist who research chemical publicity, its causes, and its results on well being. As an individual who menstruates, I additionally must make my very own choices relating to menstrual merchandise and cope with the problem of discovering correct details about girls’s well being dangers, which obtain much less analysis consideration and funding than males’s well being.
In 2024, I co-authored the primary paper to detect metals in tampons, together with poisonous metals like lead and arsenic. My colleagues and I additionally wrote a overview paper that examined the scientific literature and located about 24 research that measured chemical substances in menstrual merchandise.
The varied chemical substances detected in these research have been normally at low sufficient concentrations that their well being results have been obscured. However they contained chemical substances identified to disrupt the endocrine system, which produces and controls hormones important to the physique’s capabilities.
How do contaminants get into menstrual merchandise?
The primary fashionable tampon in america was patented in 1931. Practically a century later, tampons are nonetheless primarily produced from cotton, rayon, or a mix of the 2.
Chemical compounds can get into tampons and different menstrual merchandise in a wide range of methods. Some chemical substances, akin to heavy metals, are current within the soil, both naturally or by air pollution, and could be absorbed by cotton.
Different chemical substances, akin to zinc, could also be deliberately added to menstrual merchandise to stop the expansion of dangerous micro organism. Moreover, substances akin to phthalates (artificial chemical substances used within the manufacture of plastics) can leach into menstrual merchandise from plastic packaging or are added as a part of fragrances.
Analysis means that these chemical substances are current within the majority of menstrual merchandise, and all 30 tampons examined have been discovered to include lead. What we do not but know is whether or not these chemical substances can enter the human physique in excessive sufficient concentrations to trigger well being results within the reproductive system or elsewhere within the physique.
Restricted federal regulation
The U.S. Meals and Drug Administration regulates tampons, menstrual cups, and scented menstrual pads as Class II medical gadgets with average to average threat. Unscented menstrual pads are Class I medical gadgets and are thought-about low threat. These classes are primarily based on the danger that the gadget might pose to shoppers utilizing the gadget within the meant method.
The FDA steerage for Class II gadgets offers just some common pointers relating to chemical substances. For menstrual tampons and pads, it recommends, however doesn’t require, that the merchandise include two particular dioxin merchandise or “residues of any pesticides or herbicides.” Dioxins are a chemical byproduct of the bleaching course of that whitens cotton and have been linked to most cancers and endocrine disruption. Utilizing non-chlorine bleaching strategies can cut back the manufacturing of dioxin.
The strictest laws for tampons in america have been launched after a illness referred to as poisonous shock syndrome grew to become a public concern within the Seventies and Eighties. Menstrual Poisonous Shock Syndrome happens when the micro organism Staphylococcus aureus grows within the vagina by inserted menstrual merchandise and releases a toxin referred to as TSST-1. This substance is absorbed by the vaginal mucosa and may trigger a wide range of signs, together with fever, hypertension, shock, and even loss of life.
Throughout the outbreak, which recorded no less than 52 infections and 7 deaths over an eight-month interval, tampons have been linked to the syndrome, and one notably extremely absorbent tampon referred to as Rely was pulled from the market.
In response, the FDA established a activity pressure that really useful standardizing tampon absorbency and suggested shoppers to make use of the bottom absorbency primarily based on utilization. For that reason, tampons within the US are available a wide range of absorbencies, from mild to common to tremendous to extremely, permitting customers to decide on the extent they want whereas minimizing the danger of addictive shock.
Residing in a “chemical soup”
Simply because a chemical is in menstrual merchandise does not imply it might get into your physique. Nevertheless, chemical substances akin to lead and arsenic are identified to be a risk to human well being. Subsequently, it is very important analysis whether or not dangerous chemical substances in menstrual merchandise could cause well being issues.
People within the fashionable world stay in what Linda Birnbaum, an professional toxicologist and former director of the Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences, calls a “chemical soup.” Merely current on Earth means being uncovered to many chemical substances in various concentrations directly. This makes it obscure the connection between publicity to a single chemical and well being.
Nonetheless, science has proven that publicity to chemical substances from no less than one menstrual product, specifically vaginal douches, can have an effect on well being. Vaginal douching is the method of washing or cleansing the within of the vagina utilizing water or different liquids.
The American Faculty of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends avoiding this course of, which may injury the wholesome micro organism in your vagina and improve your threat of vaginal infections and different sicknesses.
Moreover, a 2015 examine discovered greater ranges of a chemical referred to as monoethyl phthalate within the urine of ladies who used vaginal douches. Publicity to this substance is related to reproductive well being issues, together with decreased fertility and elevated threat of being pregnant.
Are these chemical substances absorbed?
Scientists are at the moment investigating at what concentrations metals and different chemical substances can leach from tampons and different menstrual merchandise. A 2025 examine estimated that unstable natural compounds, a gaggle of quickly evaporating chemical substances, could be absorbed by the vaginal mucosa. Unstable natural compounds could also be added to menstrual merchandise as a part of fragrances, adhesives, or different product substances.
My staff and I are actually shifting our focus to the connection between menstrual product use, totally different chemical substances, and the severity of menstrual ache and bleeding. We need to see whether or not some chemical substances are elevated in menstrual blood, whether or not ranges of those chemical substances are greater in individuals who use tampons, and whether or not the chemical substances are related to menstrual ache or elevated bleeding.
Nations are starting to deal with this problem. For instance, in 2024, Vermont grew to become the primary U.S. state to ban a number of chemical substances from disposable menstrual merchandise. California has banned PFAS, a gaggle of broadly used and extremely persistent chemical substances, from menstrual merchandise. In December 2025, New York State adopted a legislation banning using a number of poisonous chemical substances from menstrual merchandise.
California additionally enacted a legislation in October 2025 that requires producers of disposable tampons and pads to measure the degrees of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and zinc of their merchandise and share these measurements with the state for publication. Extra info like it will assist the thousands and thousands of shoppers who depend on menstrual merchandise each month to make knowledgeable selections.
Jenni Shearston, Assistant Professor of Integrative Physiology, College of Colorado Daring Faculty
This text is republished from The Dialog beneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article right here: https://theconversation.com/menstrual-pads-and-tampons-can-contain-toxic-substance-heres-what-to-know-about-this-emerging-health-issue-268470.
issued – February 22, 2026 2:01 PM IST
