Toxic Shock Syndrome and Tampons: The Birth of a Movement and a Research ‘Vagenda’

Abstract

Reame reflects on her role as an early researcher on tampon safety and assesses the climate of vigilance today, demonstrating that 30 years after the discovery of the link between tampons and toxic shock syndrome, efforts to improve tampon safety protections have languished. In drawing on her past research, Reame shows how critical it is to innovate research methods and materials and to ensure that federal standards for tampon absorbency ranges and nomenclature, as well as testing procedures for tampon safety, don’t lose ground. Reame draws attention to the fact that tampon producers continue to introduce various product innovations with little government oversight for testing standards or ingredient disclosure. She concludes by offering suggestions for crucial ways in which activists in the ‘second menstrual moment’ can partner with the federal research enterprise to improve the research ‘vagenda’ in menstrual health.