Tampax
CINCINNATI – A study commissioned by plaintiff lawyers has led to a handful of lawsuits alleging tampons contain an unsafe amount of lead, with the most recent being filed last month.
The FDA has said it would look into the results published by researchers last year in Environment International but has so far announced no reason for consumers to worry. Still, class action lawsuits continue to allege women wouldn’t have bought or wouldn’t have paid as much for tampons that were tested.
Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark Corporation are among defendants targeted by attorneys at the firm KamberLaw, who in August defeated a motion to dismiss their California lawsuit. Other firms noticed the success and filed a case of their own under the consumer-protection laws of every state last month in Cincinnati federal court.
None of the cases allege injuries as a result of exposure to toxins – only that the packaging failed to warn of the dangers of lead.
“Plaintiffs and Class members have been injured inasmuch as they relied upon the labeling, packaging and advertising and paid a premium for the products which – contrary to Defendant’s representation – do not disclose the existence of lead in the products,” the Cincinnati suit says.
It was filed by four firms: Kohn, Swift & Graf and Levin Sedran & Berman of Philadelphia; Dworken & Bernstein of Cleveland; and Robert Peirce & Associates in Pittsburgh.
KamberLaw filed its first lawsuit in July 2024 in San Diego federal court on behalf of Allison Barton. It claimed the lead levels in products like Tampax Pearl Light, Pearl Regular and Pearl Super exceeded California’s limits.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel in August allowed claims to move forward. Marketing statements like “free of perfume” and “free of dyes” could lead reasonable consumers to believe the products were healthier than they were, he wrote.
The next test could come in Chicago, where Procter & Gamble filed a motion to dismiss Stephanie Foster’s lawsuit in October.
“She does not claim that the tampons she purchased were ever tested,” P&G wrote. “Instead, she relies on third-party testing of unidentified ‘homogenous samples’ of tampons with no alleged geographic or temporal connection to er purchases.
“And even if that testing could somehow be extrapolated to the products purchased by Plaintiff, she still pleads no facts showing that the trace levels of lead alleged here pose any risk.”
The FDA announced preliminary results of its own investigation that was triggered after the plaintiff lawyers’ study was released. So far, its review of literature has not identified any safety concerns.
Existing studies do not address “how much, if any, of the contaminants identified are released from the tampon or absorbed through the vagina,” the FDA said.
