Rayon and Dioxin use in Tampons

Factual Questions
1

I have recently received the following chain email.
Has anyone got anything to add? The bleaching is certainly true, what about the asbestos claim and do tampons really cause endometriosis and reduced sperm counts?
And the writer may possibly be from a company producing alternative products?

"Dear Friend
… Check the labels of the sanitary pads or tampons that you are going to buy the next time and see whether you spot any of the familiar signs stated in this email. No wonder so many women in the world suffer from cervical cancer and womb tumors. Have you heard that tampon makers include asbestos in tampons?

Why would they do this?
Because asbestos makes you bleed more, if you bleed more, you’re going to need to use more. Why isn’t this against the law since asbestos is so dangerous? Because the powers that be, in all their wisdom (not), did not consider tampons as being ingested and, therefore, did not consider them illegal or dangerous.

This month’s Essence magazine mentions 2 manufacturers of a cotton tampon alternative. The companies are: Organic Essentials @ 1-800-765-6491 and Terra Femme @ 1-800-755-0212.

A woman getting her Ph.D. at University of Colorado sent the following: "I am writing this because women are not being informed about the dangers of something most of us use: Tampons. I am taking a class this month and I have been learning a lot about biology and women, including feminine hygiene.
Recently we have learned that tampons are actually dangerous (for other reasons than TSS). After learning about this in our class, most of the females wound up feeling angry and upset with the tampon industry, and I for one, am going to do something about it. To start, I want to inform everyone I can, and email is the fastest way that I know how.
HERE IS THE SCOOP: Tampons contain two things that are potentially harmful:

Rayon (for absorbency), and dioxin (a chemical used in bleaching). The tampon industry is convinced that we, as women, need bleached white products in order to view the product as pure and clean.
The problem here is that the dioxin, can lead to very harmful problems for a woman. Dioxin is potentially carcinogenic (cancer-associated) and is toxic to the immune and reproductive systems. It has also been linked to endometriosis and lower sperm counts for men. For both sexes, it breaks down the immune system.
Last September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that there really is no “acceptable” level of exposure to dioxin given that it is cumulative and slow to disintegrate. The real danger comes from repeated contact (Karen Couppert “Pulling the Plug on the Tampon Industry”). I’d say using about 4-5 tampons a day, five days a month, for 38 years is repeated contact", wouldn’t you? Rayon contributes to the danger of tampons and dioxin because it is a highly absorbent substance.

Therefore, when fibers from the tampons are left behind in the vagina (as usually occurs), it creates a breeding ground for the dioxin. It also stays in a lot longer that it would with just cotton tampons. This is also the reason why TSS (toxic shock syndrome) occurs.
WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

Using feminine hygiene products that aren’t bleached and that are all cotton. Other feminine hygiene products (pads/napkins) contain dioxins well, but they are not nearly as dangerous.
So, what can you do if you can’t give up using tampons? Use tampons that are made from 100% UNBLEACHED. Unfortunately, there are very few companies that make these safe tampons. They are usually only found in health food stores.
Countries all over the world (Sweden, Germany, British Columbia, etc.) have demanded a switch to this safer tampon, while the US has decided to keep us in the dark about it. In 1989, activists in England mounted a campaign against chlorine bleaching. Six weeks and 50,000 letters later, the makers of sanitary products switched to oxygen bleaching (one of the green methods available) (MS magazine, May/June 1995).

WHAT TO DO NOW:

Tell people. Everyone. Inform them. We are being manipulated by this industry and the government, let’s do something about it! Please write to the companies: Tampax (Tambrands); Playtex; O.B.; Kotex. All the 800 numbers are listed on the boxes. Let them know that we demand a safe product: ALL COTTON UNBLEACHED TAMPONS…

REMINDER: In order not to lose the impact of this email, I suggest that anyone who wants to forward it to their friends, PLEASE copy this mail and paste it to a NEW message. That way it will not distort the whole message with all the forward arrows. Please do this with consideration and seriousness.
Regards,

Michelle Beaumont
Sales Support _ Australia/Asia
Trends Ideas

2

SNOPES say this one has been around for a few years.

It’s False.

3

Snopes discusses the exact e-mail you got here:

http://www.snopes2.com/toxins/tampon.htm

In particular, the asbestos claim is discussed from an FDA statement:

Hope this helps.

4

Nothing like someone posting right before you get your post in. :smack:

Note, however, that the entire email is not false. Like many popular forwardings, it includes things that are factual, such as the comment that dioxins are believed to be carcinogenic and potentially endocrine disruptors (the origin of the claims about endometriosis and decreased sperm counts). Note however that (according to the EPA), over 96% of dioxin exposure is via diet. If one is really concerned about the effects of dioxins, there are a heck of a lot more substantial ways to work for reduced dioxin exposure than lobbying tampon companies. One example is lobbying for regulations on dioxin emissions from garbage and medical waste incinerators.

5

Yes. This e-mail has been around for a long, long time. It’s bogus.

There is no asbestos in tampons.

Tampons do NOT cause or contribute to endometriosis - this condition existed long before tampons were invented.

How would a tampon reduce sperm counts? Can you construct any sort of logical and likely scenario where a man’s nuts are exposed to a piece of bleached gauzey stuff in such a way as to affect sperm production?

OK, first of all - the most likely way to get cervical cancer is through infection by the human pampilloma virus (OK, probably mispelled). You get this virus from sex with an infected person. You can’t get it from a tampon, unless, perhaps, your infected boyfriend jacks off onto the tampon before you insert it. I have never heard of tampons being utilized in this manner - have you?

And “womb tumors” is pretty broad. And they existed before tampons were invented. If women seem to be getting more “womb tumors” it might be because fewer of them are dying form infectious diseases or in childbirth and therefore live long enough to grow “womb tumors”.

OK - ANY exposure to asbestos is considered dangerous, even skin contact. It’s against the law even if it’s NOT ingested. So that’s a falsehood right there.

Second - they don’t make you bleed more because there’s no asbestos in there.

Third - if the wanted you to use MORE product they would not have invented “super-absorbant” products but would have stayed with “standard” absorbancy. So the actions of the manufacturers’ contradicts that statement.

OK… WHO is this woman - what is her name? WHAT is she earning a PhD in? Biology? Electrical Engineering? Underwater Basket-Weaving? This is pretty vague and completely impossible to confirm or deny. Now, if this had said “Sally Smith, earning her Ph.D. in biochemistry at the U of C in 1986 used this for her doctoral thesis” THAT could be checked and either verified or not.

It ain’t just tampons, and they’re probably right - whiteness IS associated with cleanliness in our society.

Now, the bit they have about dioxin may hold water - but a LOT of things in the world contain dioxin. It’s like talking about radiation - yes, radiation is bad for you, it’s generally a good idea to minimize the amount you get, but don’t be under the illusion you can live in a radiation-free zone - because you can’t.

:rolleyes: OK, dioxin is an inanimate substance. It can not breed Only life breeds. This sentence alone set off my BS meter big time.

ANY time you use any tampons fibers remain behind. These might breed bacteria, some types of which can cause toxic shock syndrome. Cotton leaves lots of fibers behind, too. However, even women who have never used tampons can get TSS. Even men can get TSS. Tampon use increases the risk of TSS slightly - but it is not the ultimate cause.

That’s right - annoy the crap out of everyone you know. This is the tip off this is one of the self-propagating, chainmail e-mail spam virus things. And it’s the reason you’ll see this e-mail again sometime in the future.

Want to reduce your risk of TSS for real? Here’s what you do:

  1. Don’t use tampons, use pads
  2. If you must use a tampon, use the least absorbant that will do the job. You see, if you use a really super-absorbant variety when you don’t really need to, you’ll dry out your vaginal mucus membranes. If they get really dry enough, you’ll not only leave “fibers” behind, but your tissues will tend to adhere to the tampon when you remove it. This can cause abrasions, microscopic tears, or otherwise breach the normal barriers between inside and outside the body, making it much more likely bacteria will enter the bloodstream - and THAT’s where TSS gets started. An overly absorbant tampon also removes the natural protective layer of mucus secreted by the vaginal walls, mucus that contains immune systems cells and (when undisturbed by douches) a pH that discourages bacterial growth. Removal of that mucus layer makes it much more likely you’ll have bacterial overgrowth and thus increases the risk of TSS because it’s caused by various species of bacteria. And THAT’s how tampon use increases the risk, and it doesn’t matter if your tampon is cotton, rayon, bleached, unbleached, or even all-natural sea-sponge cut to size (another natural alternative).
  3. Keep yourself in general good health
  4. Don’t douche
6

thank you for your responses.

7

Michael Fumento has written Tampon Terrorism
New Technique in Marketing:Using the Web to Spread Lies about Your Competition. He makes these points:

  • The people behind this e-mail are people selling Terra Femme tampons.
  • Although there is not much evidence of the TCDD kind of dioxin having negative health effects, it is the only dioxin variety that’s listed by the EPA as a carcinogen, and testing has found none of the TCDD dioxin in tampons from any manufacturer.
  • There is absolutely no evidence that cotton is safer than Rayon in tampons.
8

I always thought that the notion that asbestos in tampons would make you bleed more was kinda funny.

Menstruation occurs when the endometrial linking of the uterus, which is rich in blood vessels, breaks down each month.

In other words, menstrual blood is not bleeding from the wall of the vagina, which is what I think that they’re trying to insinuate the (non-existant) asbestos would cause.

Unless there’s sort of angle to this asbestos thing that I don’t understand, you have to be totally clueless about something that happens to your own body every 28 days in order to swallow that UL.