Jessica Wynn

These products are expensive.

But when profit drives design instead of safety, people pay the price.

Like with the toxic shock crisis in the 1980s with these super absorbent tampons.

So toxic shock syndrome is this rare but life-threatening illness, and it's caused by bacterial toxins that enter the bloodstream.

It's historically linked to these high-absorbency tampons that were left in too long.

But it's also seen with skin infections or surgery sometimes.

It often shows as a staph infection, and it comes on fast.

You get like a high fever, vomiting, rash, dizziness.

So if symptoms appear, remove the tampon immediately and run to the ER.

But it was really bad in the 1980s because these ultra absorbent synthetic tampons, they let bacteria thrive and toxins build up, especially when they were left in too long, which was this design failure.

And it turned convenience into a really serious risk.

until those products were pulled and safety standards changed.

That didn't happen until after several women died.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It peaked in the early part of the 80s at about 100 deaths a year.

But they pulled the products.

And by 1989, there were zero menstrual deaths that were reported.

So today we have more options.

There's safer tampons, pads, cups, period underwear.