A new lawsuit claims a personal care company's menstrual pads contain a toxic chemical that can cause reproductive health problems for the women who wear them.
The suit, filed in California state court by the advocacy group Ecological Alliance, claims the company Edgewell has failed to warn state residents that its Carefree panty liners contain Perfluorooctanoic Acid, or PFOA. The group alleges this is a direct violation of Proposition 65, which requires companies to state whether toxic chemicals are present in their products.
To remedy the situation, Ecological Alliance is demanding Edgewell put a warning label on its packaging to state its inclusion of the chemical or to remove the chemical from its products from the California marketplace altogether, stating the brand and its manufacturers "know and intend that their products expose consumers" in the state to PFOA.
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PFOA is a compound used in non-stick cookware and other products for its stain and water-repellant properties. It's one of about 15,000 synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are called PFAS or forever chemicals. These are compounds that don't break down easily and are toxic to humans, as they can build up in the body and cause issues like cancer, thyroid disease, kidney and liver problems, immune disorders, reproductive effects and more.
Reproductive issues linked to PFOAs, specifically, include lower birth weight, suppressed immune systems, higher pregnancy-induced blood pressure, decreased fertility and hormone interference, according to the Environmental Working Group. And in the case of Carefree panty liners, the Ecological Alliance says the risk of these issues may be high.
"The products are used by women for up to 8-10 hours at a time, in direct contact with a woman’s vaginal area, which is more vulnerable to exposure than via transdermal methods on the skin and potentially leads to direct exposure into the bloodstream through vaginal tissue," the lawsuit states.
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The Environmental Protection Agency says there is no safe level of PFOA exposure, but it's set the maximum contaminant level to 4 parts per trillion in drinking water. And in California, the goal is even stricter at .007 parts per trillion.
The state added PFOA to its Proposition 65 list of chemicals that are known to cause reproductive toxicity in 2017 and to the list known to cause cancer in 2022. But it's one of only around a dozen states that have enacted laws in regards to forever chemicals in products.
In February, the Ecological Alliance sent a 60-day notice of violation to the defendants in the lawsuit, California's attorney general, all of its district attorneys and city attorneys in areas with populations greater than 750,000 stating the brand was failing to comply with Prop 65. The group said it never received a response, and action was not taken to enforce compliance.
