The typical menstruator will use over 11,000 tampons or sanitary pads of their lifetime. Vaginal and vulvar tissue that contact pads and tampons is extremely permeable. By this permeable tissue chemical compounds are absorbed with out being metabolized, which makes endocrine-disrupting chemical compounds doubtlessly harmful when present in menstrual merchandise. Endocrine-disrupting chemical compounds can intervene with human hormones and trigger medical points, together with gynecological circumstances comparable to endometriosis and uterine fibroids.
Joanna Marroquin, a Mason PhD in Public Well being scholar, and Affiliate Professor Anna Pollack, reviewed research performed since 2103 that measured chemical compounds in menstrual merchandise and that measured human biomarkers of chemical publicity and decided that endocrine-disrupting chemical compounds had been present in menstrual merchandise together with tampons, pads, and liners.
“Figuring out chemical compounds in menstrual merchandise that menstruators repeatedly use is essential as a result of publicity via these merchandise can affect menstruators’ reproductive well being,” stated Marroquin, the paper’s first writer.
The research discovered that menstrual merchandise comprise a wide range of endocrine-disrupting chemical compounds together with phthalates, unstable natural compounds, parabens, environmental phenols, perfume chemical compounds, dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.
This challenge is much more related due to the Robin Danielson Menstrual Product and Intimate Care Product Security Act of 2023, which was launched within the U.S. Home of Representatives in October 2023. The Act would set up a program of analysis concerning the dangers posed by the presence of dioxins, phthalates, pesticides, chemical fragrances, and different parts in menstrual merchandise and intimate care merchandise.
This literature reviewed 15 papers printed between 2013 and 2023 that examined menstrual merchandise within the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. The researchers observe that there are few publications out there that measure chemical compounds in menstrual merchandise.
Moreover, although perpetually chemical compounds (PFAS) have been present in menstrual underwear, there’s a lack of peer-reviewed analysis on menstrual underwear and different newly-popular-in-the-U.S. merchandise comparable to menstrual cups and discs.
Chemical compounds in menstrual merchandise: A scientific assessment was printed in BJOG, a global journal of obstetrics and gynecology in September 2023. Extra authors embody Marianthi-Anna Kiomourtzoglou from Mailman College of Public Well being, Columbia College and Alexandra Scranton from Ladies’s Voices for the Earth.
The analysis was supported by Pollack’s Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences R01ES31079 award.
