Arsenic, lead, and cadmium. These are substances found in several popular tampon brands. This is revealed by a new American study, and the results are alarming to researchers.
Researchers at the University of Berkeley in the USA have analyzed the content of 30 tampons from 14 different brands from the EU, the UK, and the USA, reports SVT.
The analyses show that all of them contain potentially toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium. This also applies to tampons marketed as ecological. The ecological ones also contained higher levels of arsenic than the others.
It is not clear whether the metals detected in the tampons cause any negative health effects on the women who use them.
Now we need to investigate how much of the metal from the tampons the body can absorb. Especially since tampons are used in a sensitive part of the body that can easily absorb what it is exposed to, says Kathrin Schilling, one of the researchers behind the study, to SVT.
SVT has been in contact with the Chemicals Agency, which states that they do not currently plan to conduct an inspection since there are no rules, and therefore no limit values to compare with.
