By Helen Lynn, Senior Consultant and Research Fellow and Environmenstrual Campaign Manager at Wen
Conversations about period product safety often prompt important but sometimes confusing debates about what the science really tells us. It’s not unusual, when evidence begins to challenge the status quo, for discussions to turn towards doubt and delay. History shows this is a familiar playbook – one that too often slows progress on protecting people and the planet.
In the book Doubt is their Product – David Michaels describes how a tactic first pioneered effectively by the tobacco industry – manufacturing uncertainty – has been honed and replicated ad nauseum by corporate multinationals and companies who dislike anyone calling out their harmful practices, hazardous processes, or toxic chemicals in their products.
Working in a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) means you get to witness firsthand how this operates.
First, they come after science. Then the scientists. And finally, the NGOs. By undermining and casting doubt on the science, discrediting experts, demanding endless more research and accusing NGOs of scaremongering – decades go by without effective regulation. Meanwhile workers and consumers are harmed even killed, while the environment and wildlife bear the devastating costs.
Scaring the scaremonger
Scaremongering is defined as deliberately spreading worrying stories or rumours with the aim of scaring people. This label is often given to NGOs who raise legitimate concerns about toxic chemicals. When NGOs question the safety of chemicals like phthalates, PFAS, Bisphenol A and or pesticides like glyphosate, they have been chastised by the chemical industry for creating panic.
But we find that a normal human reaction to things that could harm us is fear and panic. The question isn’t why people are afraid – it’s why governments have failed to protect them and regulate chemicals properly. And why industry dithers around transparency and erects these barriers in the way of proper regulation. Of course, this is not the only tactic used by industry to elicit silence and delay regulation.
It’s the scientists not the science
When you are up against big corporations, scientists and science suffer. We’ve witnessed this tactic with everything from Love Canal to the PFAS contamination and the more recent J&J talc scandal.
Well respected scientists like Tyronne Hayes whose research on how the pesticide atrazine was shown to change the sex of frogs, was hounded and the target of a smear campaign. This approach effectively undermines the science and the scientists, conveniently creating doubt which pushes the issue into the long grass.
As an NGO, we are well aware of this tactic – its ubiquity is at odds with its ability to stand the test of time. Voluntary industry codes are often used to reassure customers about the safety of period products. While these products are regulated, they are not specifically identified in legislation and instead fall under general consumer regulatory categories like candles.
When evidence is not really evidence
The use of terms like ‘evidence-based science’ have become all too very familiar. It can be used to weaponize, create false doubt, and dismiss peer reviewed research implying it’s not ‘proper science’ or ‘evidence based’. Even though the findings may support decades of similar evidence. By redefining what counts as evidence, companies narrow the field to “acceptable” data – usually research they’ve funded themselves.
This has been used very effectively on issues like climate change, fossil fuels and risks to workers or public health. The bar for proof is set so high, it creates paralysis by analysis. Industry promotes a risk-based approach, which requires evidence of both hazard and exposure while rejecting a hazard-based approach which leads to action once a danger is identified. This shifts the burden of proof away from industry, and delays and distorts action on the harm. Although we know that in science, there is rarely 100 per-cent certainty.
We know more about the surface of the moon than the vagina
These tactics used by the corporate industry have led to decades of inaction and have served to keep items like period products largely unregulated. It has fallen to independent agencies, scientists and NGOs to test period products, finding everything from heavy metals to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in a range of both single use disposable and even reusable period products.
This is compounded by the fact that we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the vagina, whose health has been consistently overlooked. This lack of evidence of harm is presented as evidence of safety. We know chemicals like EDCs and PFAS, are linked to serious health impacts including hormone disruption, cancer and infertility. Heavy metals like Lead in period products are a no brainer; there are no safe levels and we’ve known about its dangers for decades. It has no place in tampons.
The dose no longer makes the poison
For centuries, scientists believed that the amount of a substance or chemical we were exposed to correlated to how ill it might make us. Described as the ‘dose makes the poison’, the chemical industry still relies on this logic, often comparing harmful chemicals to harmless substances like salt.
But we know now this old adage doesn’t apply to chemicals like EDCs or PFAS or certain pesticides. It’s more about the timing of the dose or exposure than how much we are exposed to, and we also know that for EDCs, no safe levels can be determined. At critical windows of development like puberty, menstruation and pregnancy, even low dose exposures can have lasting effects. As The Lancet has noted, for EDCs, no safe level can be determined.
We deserve better!
We now understand that many of these chemicals accumulate in our bodies and are passed down through the generations. We live in what scientists call a “toxic chemical soup” but this doesn’t make it acceptable to keep adding to it, or that we shouldn’t aim to reduce our exposure wherever possible. Every reduction in exposure to toxic chemicals is a win for public health.
Transparency from companies who produce period products is very welcome, and we applaud those who share their data and test results. But for others, consumers shouldn’t have to be detectives or chemists to stay safe.
Regulation is the end goal here, not just transparency. Voluntary codes aren’t enough. What’s needed is clear, enforceable regulation that puts health before profit. As Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist Dr. Karen Joash said at Wen’s recent event in the House of Lords, this is not just an issue for every woman, girl or person who menstruates – it’s a public health crisis.
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