TOXIC SHOCK AND PRODUCT SAFETY

A Rare Illness on the Increase

"It even absorbs the worry," proclaimed Procter & Gamble when it first distributed its tampon products. But decades later in 1980, Procter & Gamble had plenty of worries. After 344 cases of a rare and baffling illness were reported in 1980, the Centers for Disease Control linked women's use of tampons to an outbreak of a rare, sometimes fatal, toxic shock syndrome. One study of a group of sufferers discovered that 71 percent of them had used Procter & Gamble's Rely tampons. Procter & Gamble ordered a recall of its tampons and soon found itself in court.

Toxic Shock Syndrome

Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a severe, systemic illness associated with infection by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. The CDC's findings indicated it occurred most commonly in menstruating women who used tampons—about 75 percent of TSS victims—although it also occurred in children, men, and nonmenstruating women. Three to 5 percent of the cases were fatal. The syndrome had a sudden onset with high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and a sunburn-like red rash that could occur anywhere on the body. Within a day or two, victims could suffer a drop in blood pressure, ranging from mild symptoms of dizziness to fatal shock. Treatment included intensive antibiotic therapy.

Lawsuits

By 1982 hundreds of lawsuits flooded the courts—four hundred against Procter & Gamble and one hundred or so against four other manufacturers. The first verdict on Rely resulted in a strange outcome when a federal jury in Denver returned a finding with bad news for both sides. After nearly twenty hours of deliberation, the jury found that the company was negligent in selling a defective product, but it also concluded that the young plaintiff who brought the case should not be awarded any money. After the first Rely case, a federal jury found Procter & Gamble liable for the TSS death of a twenty-five-year-old woman and awarded $300,000 in damages. On 24 December 1982 a California jury awarded $10.5 million in damages to a woman who had suffered from toxic shock syndrome after using tampons made by Johnson & Johnson.

A Defective Product

Toxic shock was first identified in 1978, and the number of reported cases peaked in 1980, then decreased. Studies of Rely and other tampons indicated that certain types of superabsorbing tampons contained cellulose chips that absorbed magnesium, which acted as a nutrient to encourage the growth of Staphylococcus aureus. The bacteria, in turn, generated poisonous waste products, which were circulated by the blood. Complaints were brought on behalf of victims who suffered brain damage, gangrene, partial paralysis, and death. The superabsorbing products were removed from the market, and preventive measures educated menstruating women about the safe use of tampons. But lawsuits against manufacturers continued, leaving consumers to ponder the safety of common products.

Sources:

"Tampon Alarm," U.S. News & World Report (6 October 1980): 91;

"A Verdict on Tampons," Time (29 March 1982): 73.

CONSUMERS LEAGUES

CONSUMERS LEAGUES are voluntary organizations dedicated to securing good working conditions in factories and industry and to promoting the manufacture of safe consumer goods. In 1888 shirtmaker Leonora O'Reilly asked middle-class activist Josephine Shaw Lowell to work with the New York Working Women's Society to enlist middle-class women to help secure better working conditions for women. Two years later the women circulated a "White List" identifying retail stores that treated their employees fairly and asking women to shop only at those stores. In 1890 women formally organized the Consumers' League of New York, with Lowell as its president. An 1898 meeting of representatives of leagues from seven states produced the National Consumers' League (NCL), which in 1899 hired the noted reformer Florence Kelley as its general secretary. Under Kelley's leadership, NCL membership grew quickly: in 1901 there were thirty leagues in eleven states; in 1906 there were sixty-three leagues in twenty states; and by 1913 the NCL had 30,000 members.

From 1899 through the 1930s leagues worked to eliminate goods that were produced under conditions Kelley termed "injurious to human life and health." Leagues demanded maximum-hours and minimum-wage laws and under the leadership of Lucy Mason and Mary Dublin Keyserling the NCL helped enact the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In the 1970s Keyserling brought the NCL into the pro–Equal Rights Amendment coalition. At the end of the twentieth century the NCL was investigating Internet fraud and leading a national anti-sweatshop taskforce.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Storrs, Landon R. Y. Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers' League, Women's Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

MaureenFlanagan

See alsoFair Labor Standards Act ; Minimum-Wage Legislation .