Diapers and Pads May Be Leaching Chemicals Into Our Bodies
Sierra Club Magazine
by Katie O’Reilly
…The findings are triggering broader conversations about societal attitudes toward women’s reproductive health. Alexandra Scranton, director of science and research for Women’s Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit that works to eliminate toxins that harm women’s health, points out that it’s telling that this all started as a media investigation. “The NIH [National Institutes of Health] hadn’t even sponsored any research into vaginal or vulval health since the 1980s,” Scranton says. “Cultural taboos have a lot to do with how things get funded and researched. For instance, when it comes to menstrual products, the question of whether feeling miserable a few days out of the month might have something to do with the products women use has never been explored from a scientific perspective.” She adds that industry studies into manufacturers’ products are limited, tend to only look at potential exposure from the top layer of pads and diapers, and often don’t take into account chemicals’ long-term volatility…
