United States: The U. S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that it is set to commence an investigation into any impacts that might be associated with toxic metals detected in tampons.
This comes after a study was conducted in July where researcher bought 30 tampons from fourteen different brands, in major outlets in the United States, United Kingdom, and Greece, where traces of lead and other metals were detected. The study in question was done by a team from University of California at Berkeley and it was published in Environmental International.
As reported by HealthDay, the FDA is aware of concerns regarding the safety of tampons following a study conducted in 2024 that identified metals in tampons through laboratory testing, the agency said in the release.
The agency emphasized that it goes through certain tests for tampons used in the market as well and it has conducted the analysis based on literature review and on the data obtained from its laboratory and the test results of UC Berkeley study need to be explained. However, the FDA wants anyone to note that ‘’the metals were detected in some cases tampons, but the study did not look at whether metals are leached from the tampons during use.’’ ‘It also did not study possibilities of metals coming out, being absorbed by the vaginal wall and entering the bloodstream when using a tampon.’
“The FDA is going to investigate how much metal comes out of tampons under circumstances that are closer to typical usage,” the agency said in the statement. “These will help the FDA finish a risk assessment of ambient metals in tampons with a worst-case exposure scenario of metals.”
Regarding the time that will be taken for the completion of the study and the publication of the results no time has been provided.
The UC Berkeley work was done by research subject, Jenni Shearston, who is a postdoctoral scholar at the School of Public Health, Berkeley. Her team searched for concentrations of arsenic, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, mercury, nickel, lead, selenium, strontium, vanadium, and zinc in those tampons obtained from supermarkets and retail shops.