The hardest part of finding out what's in your tampon or pad is the lack of information. We're going to be honest here, we can't say whether your tampon or pad is causing cancer. No one can say for sure because there hasn't been a long-term clinical study done to determine the effects of different types of menstrual products.
In the U.S., senator Carolyn Maloney is championing the Robin Danielson Act, named after a woman who died of Toxic Shock Syndrome. Maloney is asking for research that would look into the potential dangers of some types of menstrual products. “American women spend well over $2 billion per year on feminine hygiene products, and the average woman will use over 16,800 tampons and pads over the course of her lifetime. Despite this large investment and high usage, there has been limited research on the potential health risks these products may pose to women.”
Philip Tierno, from the New York University School of Medicine says in an interview with CNN, “Sure, one tampon is trace,” “But consider the menstrual lifetime of a woman. They use approximately 12,000 tampons in a lifetime. That means 12,000 exposures of dioxin...five, six, seven times a day. That’s a lot of dioxin absorbed directly through the vagina. It goes directly into the blood.”