Feminine hygiene products are probably one of the most basic and important products a consumer can buy. The 72 million women and girls of childbearing age (broadly defined as ages 15 to 49) in the United States rely on the industry to provide them with a variety of hygiene products, from tampons to pads, menstrual underwear to pads, and the industry as a whole has responded. . . But there are growing signs that manufacturers are treating these consumers very badly too, potentially posing serious risks to their health and well-being.
Over the past three years, feminine hygiene products have been found to be contaminated with PFAS (short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has linked these ubiquitous and long-lasting manufacturing chemicals, also known as “forever chemicals,” to a variety of health problems, including: decreased fertility, high blood pressure in pregnant women, and the risk of certain types of cancer. Accelerated growth, stunting and low birth weight in children, hormonal imbalances, high cholesterol, decreased immune system effectiveness (leading to decreased effectiveness of vaccines), and more.
PFAS are present almost everywhere, including our tap water—at least in communities that test their water for PFAS, some food and food packaging, some household cleaners, shampoos, and other personal care products; carpets. But what’s causing the most buzz lately is the presence of chemicals in menstrual products, especially since these products come into close contact with a woman’s body, and many are marketed as “natural” or “organic.” “
In a series of laboratory analyzes conducted between 2020 and 2022 by the consumer watchdog website Mamavation and Environmental Health News, 48% of sanitary pads, incontinence pads and panty liners tested contained PFAS, with tampons also found to contain PFAS. content level is 22%, tampons – 65%. menstrual underwear.
Additionally, Leah Szegedy, founder and editor of Mamavation magazine, stated in one analysis that of the 22 products that tested positive for PFAS, “13 of them were advertised as ‘organic,’ ‘natural,’ ‘non-toxic.’ “eco-friendly” or “no harmful chemicals used.” In another analysis, 13 of 18 products that made similar claims tested positive for PFAS.
The new investigation has prompted calls not only for better monitoring of the presence of PFAS in all products, but also for increased regulation and eventual elimination of the chemicals entirely. Activists are calling on manufacturers to find alternatives to PFAS; Manufacturers are fighting back, saying that in some cases they don’t even know the substances are present in their products, or, if they are, the levels are too low. .
It’s not just regulators monitoring PFAS flights. Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House have recently committed to taking action, including a slow phase-out of PFAS and remediation and cleanup of contaminated sites. Meanwhile, three separate class action lawsuits were filed between 2020 and 2022 against menstrual underwear maker Thinx in California, Massachusetts and New York, alleging testing showed PFAS in its products. Thinx markets its products as “sustainable” and “eco-friendly” and denies all of the claims in the lawsuit. However, the cases were consolidated in the Southern District of New York in August 2022, and a settlement was reached in December giving women who purchased Thinx products the opportunity to request a refund or a voucher for a future purchase.
“In addition,” said Erin Ruben, one of the court-appointed attorneys representing the class, “there are non-monetary remedies [relating to] the steps [Thinx] will take to ensure that PFAS is not intentionally added to the product at any stage its production. In the settlement document, the company agreed not only to guarantee that PFAS will not be knowingly used at any stage of the production process, but also to require its raw material suppliers to sign a code of conduct confirming that they take similar precautions.
Thinx agreed to the settlement, denying allegations that it knowingly added PFAS to its products and maintaining that none of the plaintiffs in the suit were harmed.
But if the class action lawsuit is settled, the problem of PFAS—especially in menstrual products and in the environment in general—will not go away anytime soon. These chemicals are everywhere and in everyone’s body – even in unborn children passing through the placenta and in newborns contaminated through breast milk. This is a problem we created ourselves and it cannot provide a better solution.
PFAS is not a single chemical, but a family of approximately 12,000 chemicals. Originally developed in the 1940s, they have many uses, including making pots and pans more durable and stain-resistant, and making food packaging more resistant to grease and paper and cardboard; These substances are colloquially known as “forever chemicals” due to their exceptional persistence, which largely depends on how long they remain in the environment (and not just the environment).
“They are very persistent,” said Erin Bell, a professor at the University at Albany School of Public Health. PFAS have a very long half-life, which is the time it takes for the concentration of a chemical in the body or environment to drop by half, then half again, and so on until only trace amounts remain. . “They take a long time to leave our bodies.” According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PFOS, one of the two most common types of PFAS, has a half-life in the body of 4.8 years; the other most common type, the period is 3.5 years. Either way, it’s enough to cause them long-term health problems.
Worse, it doesn’t take very high doses of PFAS to cause harm. PFAS cause the greatest potential harm if ingested. In June 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency revised its guidelines for the use of PFAS in water supplies, setting safety thresholds for PFOS at 0.02 parts per trillion (ppt) and for PFOA at 0.004 ppm. (PFAS concentrations in water supplies nationwide are unknown because the Environmental Protection Agency has not mandated universal testing.) The reason such low concentrations are set for a single dose of contaminated water is because the risk comes from long-term, repeated exposure.
“The assumption is that you’ve been drinking water your whole life,” said Graham Peasley, a physics professor at the University of Notre Dame who is also active in PFAS research and whose laboratory regularly tests products for the substances. As he succinctly put it: “As long as you live, you drink water.”
Laboratory researchers typically do not test for PFAS directly (which requires very precise and expensive analysis) but instead test for organofluorine compounds, which are present in PFAS and are easier to detect. A positive fluoride result is considered a presumptive indicator of the presence of PFAS. “The indicators of high total fluoride levels have always been PFAS,” Peaslee said.
Concentrations in feminine hygiene products are often much higher than those allowed in tap water, and although they are not as ingestible as water, they can be just as dangerous since the vaginal area is extremely vascular and more susceptible to contaminants.
“This is a very sensitive organization,” Bell said. “So in places where we haven’t seen a lot of transdermal exposure, such as on the hands, there is potential for it in the vaginal area.”
Tests conducted by Mamavation and EHN found that tampons from five of the 23 brands studied contained PFAS levels between 19 and 28 parts per million (ppm). 48% of sanitary and incontinence pads tested positive for levels between 11 and 154 ppm.
“What is not yet clear about these products is how much is in the product and how much actually ends up in our bodies,” Bell said. Equally troubling is the exposure of these products to workers in the factories where they are produced, who may be exposed to high concentrations of PFAS and may be inhaled or ingested if they come into contact with their lips, hands, or other food sources.
The US federal government and manufacturers have not completely ignored the PFAS issue and have recently taken a more proactive stance. Back in 2002, companies, under pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency, began agreeing to phase out PFOS in all products, followed by a phaseout of PFOA in 2015. But their presence as persistent chemicals persists in the environment and in durable products manufactured before the ban.
Additionally, they have been replaced by two other types of PFAS, namely PFBS and GenX chemicals. Bell said both substances are safer than PFOA and PFOS because they remain in the body for shorter periods of time, but “have the potential to cause some of the same health effects as other PFAS.” Although menstrual products do not contain PFOA or PFOS, they tested positive for fluoride, indicating that some other PFAS chemicals were used in their production.
On October 21, 2021, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced an agency-wide “strategic roadmap” to limit the use of PFAS and hold polluters accountable. This policy appears to be beneficial, but its short time frame (2021-2024) is too short to solve a very large problem, and no one claims that the cleanup will be completed by the end of next year. More realistically, in December 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that included a more modest “Buy Organic” provision requiring the federal government to end all purchases by 2050. Products containing PFAS.
Currently, the response to PFAS found in menstrual products is limited. The government has yet to comment on the findings, and while consumers may have read the news and decided to avoid some of the brands named Mamavation and EHN, there has been no organized boycott.
In menstrual products, PFAS can help make the materials more absorbent and, in the case of menstrual underwear, more stain-resistant. Removing PFAS and replacing them with less toxic substances that have the same effect should be relatively easy. The problem is that companies themselves are sometimes unaware that they are using PFAS in their production processes; these chemicals appear to be used to produce the raw materials they buy from suppliers.
The key to the unintended presence of PFAS is the concentration of the chemicals in the product. Peasley said when levels reach parts per million or less, it usually indicates that manufacturers may not even be aware of the presence of PFAS, since such low levels would not have any impact on the functionality or effectiveness of the product.
Intentional inclusion is another matter. “We typically find hundreds or thousands of parts per million,” Peasley said. This value is high enough to indicate that the end manufacturer intended to include them. Unfortunately, he added, “there are no regulatory restrictions in this regard.”
Until mandatory regulations are passed and industry adopts safe, non-toxic alternatives to PFAS, these chemicals will continue to be widespread and dangerous. Going to court, as in the case of Thinx, may be a bad decision after an autopsy, but it can at least force the manufacturer to take action.
Meanwhile, women concerned about menstrual and other sanitary products have no choice but to turn to sites like Mamavation, EHN, and the Sierra Club, which have also conducted research on PFAS content in menstrual products and tested those that don’t. contain PFAS brand. chemicals. The federal government does not currently require industries to list PFAS levels on their products, although New York state passed a law in 2019 requiring companies to list any substances intentionally added to menstrual products, and California followed suit in 2020 and followed this approach. Until Washington does the same, most women will be left guessing as they roll the dice on one of the most important and personal consumer decisions they can make.
Post time: Nov-09-2024