# Why did the Today sponge go off the market? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 26, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850 "2003-08-26T22:24:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Clu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@Clu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clu)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/1 "2003-08-26T22:24:36Z")
I’m curious. ---
**Author:** ![Scoo8b](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Scoo8b](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoo8b)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/2 "2003-08-26T22:47:18Z")
Is that what Elaine wanted in that one Seinfeld episode? I don’t feel like googling it right now… ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/3 "2003-08-26T22:55:29Z")
FWIW: You can buy it in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/4 "2003-08-26T23:14:56Z")
I think it was simple lack of demand. More and more women were using birth control pills instead. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/5 "2003-08-26T23:20:09Z")
I believe it’s back on the market again, but the reason it went off the market the first time is that the company making it couldn’t bring the quality of the water[sup]\*[/sup] at the manufacturing site up to FDA minimum standards in an economical fashion, so they just dropped the product. As for demand, I personally ‘knew’ a fair number of women that much preferred the sponge to any other form of birth control. [sup]\*[/sup]‘Dirty’ water = FDA approval cancelled. ---
**Author:** ![Padmaraga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@Padmaraga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padmaraga)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/6 "2003-08-27T00:03:02Z")
I thought I had read (at the time they took it off the market) that there was a suspicion that it was linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome. Never bothered to confirm if that was true or not. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/7 "2003-08-27T01:32:50Z")
Dunno about the TSS link, but the company cited the water situation when they pulled the sponge. I know, my girlfriend and I used them, ah, _regularly_, and all of a sudden they disappeared on us, so I asked the pharmacist. She showed me a copy of the press release. Could easily have been as a cover for other reasons, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![5\_time\_champ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/278dde/32.png) [@5\_time\_champ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5_time_champ)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/8 "2003-08-27T02:01:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scoo8b \* > \*\*Is that what Elaine wanted in that one Seinfeld episode? I don’t feel like googling it right now… \*\* Yes. Evidently American women couldn’t find enough American men who are **spongeworthy** ---
**Author:** ![Qwisp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qwisp/32/397_2.png) [@Qwisp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwisp)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/9 "2003-08-27T04:21:32Z")
I too would like to know the exact reason they were discontinued.Used to use them all the time before my husband…never mind. ---
**Author:** ![giftedest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7c8e57/32.png) [@giftedest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/giftedest)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/10 "2003-08-27T05:02:36Z")
This may toss this post into IMHO too, but I believe there were rantings from idiot women who may have thought the sponges were supposed to last all month and got terribly ill… Maybe all they could find to charge the company with was impure water, but I think it was moronic users that ruined it for the rest of us. Pretty sure they’re still available, but probably have larger print instructions showing stick figure drawings with the red circle and slash line through it at the 8 hour mark on the analog clock now. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bb73d2/32.png) [@Wolfrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfrick)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/11 "2003-08-27T06:33:40Z")
[http://www.angelfire.com/tn/talbot/todaysponge.html](http://www.angelfire.com/tn/talbot/todaysponge.html) > [@](#): > > Drug giant American Home Products (AHP) really did take the contraceptive device off the market in 1995 after the Food and Drug Administration found too much bacteria in its factory’s water. AHP withdrew the sponge because it wasn’t enough of a cash cow to justify refurbishing the contaminated factory or restarting production. > > Production of the Sponge ceased in March 1994. In the year before being taken off the market, it was the single most used form of over-the-counter birth control. The Today Sponge was pulled from the market in 1995. > > FDA investigators also established that the firm had neglected to validate its microbiological test methods, there by raising questions about their reliability. Still other problems were found in the firm’s equipment sanitization. There’s no evidence that the bacteria ever contaminated the sponge. It’s back on the market, by the way [http://www.msnbc.com/news/880659.asp?cp1=1](http://www.msnbc.com/news/880659.asp?cp1=1) ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/12 "2003-08-28T19:21:30Z")
Toldja so! 😛 😃 ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-today-sponge-go-off-the-market/197850/13 "2003-08-29T03:15:31Z")
Are we going to take something posted on an angelfire site as the last word? Note the MSNBC story. The Sponge was the most convenient form of birth control available for some women, like epileptics, who could not use hormones. Many other women loved it because you only use it when you have sex. (As distinguished from pills, IUD or Depo.) Others preferred the sponge because diaphragms are not the most comfortable things in the world, and have to be carefully maintained.