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Do women usually increase their levels of lead (i.e. circulating in the blood) via vaginal exposure to lead containing materials?

From 3 weeks ago:

Don't Panic about Lead in Tampons - by Dr. Jen Gunter

Investigators evaluated 24 unique types of tampons from 14 brands with a range of absorbency (regular, super, super plus, and ultra). Seven of the products were labeled as organic. A total of 30 tampons were sampled (two lots were purchased for several of the products; hence, there were 30 tampons tested but 24 unique types). Each tampon was tested twice, for a total of 60 tests. I would like to point out that this can only be considered an exploratory study since one to two tampons of each type represents a small sampling and is not representative of the likely millions of tampons used every year. The investigators sampled the absorbent part of the tampon, meaning the core (the cotton-looking fluffy stuff), and the woven cover, if one existed, looking for 16 different metals/metalloids. Twenty-six tampons were purchased in the US and four in the EU or UK. The country of purchase does not tell us where the product was made or where the cotton or wood pulp originated. The results do not tell us which tampon brand tested positive for which metal/metalloid. Very little chromium or mercury was found, so we won’t discuss those results further. Dr. Love emailed me a few concerns. She told me that in the “processing of the tampon samples, they use a cotton reference material only, not accounting for the other materials that tampons might contain.” Some of the tampons have rayon, polyester, or polypropylene, and, according to Dr. Love, “these non-cotton materials could impact the results” if they aren’t accounted for in the reference material.

Harmful Levels of Lead in Tampons?! Not so fast...

The study reports a geometric mean of 120 nanograms of lead per gram of tampon material. 120 ng/g is essentially the same as 120 parts per billion.

Why do tampons have lead in them in the first place? Well, because they are made from cotton, which is a plant. Lead is an elemental metal that is ubiquitous on the planet. Plants in particular take up lead as they grow in soil - which means that plants will contain lead.

So let’s talk about some other plants you might encounter:

Textiles and clothing? Yep, also made with plant materials, including cotton.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in the US has set a level of 90,000 ppb (90 parts per million (ppm)) for lead in accessible parts of children's products, including textiles. This was created specifically to help protect children from lead exposure, a population that is of particular risk for lead poisoning. That’s over 750 TIMES HIGHER than the mean lead levels detected in tampons.

The REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals) program by the European Chemicals Agency also sets limits on the use of lead in consumer products, including textiles. Their regulation is set even higher: 500,000 ppb of lead in textiles (including those with skin contact). That’s over 4,166 TIMES HIGHER than the mean lead levels detected in tampons.

Ok, I know what you’re going to say. Well, clothing, fabrics, furniture material, they’re only touching your external skin. The vaginal mucosa is different. A little bit, sure. But, the structure of the epithelium in your skin and the mucosa is actually pretty similar. Tea leaves? Yes, plants you steep in hot water and then drink?

The European Union has a safety threshold of 5,000 parts per billion lead in food stuffs, including tea leaves. That’s over 42 TIMES HIGHER than the mean lead levels detected in tampons.

What about water? We ingest that and it comes into contact with lots of things that could contaminate it.

Tap water and bottled water are regulated by two different safety agencies. Tap water is regulated by the EPA, and bottled is regulated by the FDA. For tap water, there is a safety threshold of 15 ppb, and bottled water has a 5 ppb allowable level.

Say you drink 2 liters of water a day. For ease of math, 5 ppb also equals 5 micrograms per liter, and 15 ppb equals 15 micrograms per liter. That means, at these thresholds for water, something you ingest every single day, you could consume between 10 and 30 micrograms of lead daily.

10 micrograms equals 10,000 nanograms.

30 micrograms equals 30,000 nanograms.

To go back to our tampon example, let’s use the maximum detected level of lead: 936 nanograms in a 2 gram tampon. These levels in water you might consume daily are between 10 and 32 TIMES HIGHER than the lead detected in a tampon.

Alright, what about plants we burn and then inhale? Like… cannabis?

Cannabis is not federally regulated, so regulations vary by states that have legal weed growing practices.

• California? The ultra-chemophobic state that, because of Prop 65, tells you *everything* causes cancer? Their limit on lead in cannabis is 500 nanograms per gram, which is high than the maximum lead concentration detected in a tampon in this study.

• Washington state? 1,200 nanograms per gram.

• Michigan? Even higher. 2,000 nanograms per gram in cannabis.

• Colorado? The highest. 10,000 nanograms per gram in cannabis.

If you’re terrified of these news headlines regarding tampons, but not about these other things that contain far higher lead levels, you might want to explore your confirmation bias.

And, speaking of menstruation, one common yet ignored source of lead is...

Backyard hens’ eggs contain 40 times more lead on average than shop eggs. Hopefully, people stuffing eggs into their orifices is getting less popular.

I'm saying that starting panics over tampons is a bad idea, as it easily lends itself to moral panics about bodily purity. Then, a few decades later we're back to monotheistic theories of dirty women and how women should be segregated and kept in huts during the "dirty time".

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