Dioxin and Rayon Concerns
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/ocd/tamponsabs.html
There are also allegations that some tampons contain toxic amounts of the chemical dioxin. The
term "dioxin" or "dioxins" actually refers to a number of related chemical compounds.
State-of-the art testing of tampons and tampon materials that can detect even trace amounts of
dioxin has shown that dioxin levels are at or below the detectable limit. No risk to health would
be expected from these trace amounts.
Tampons currently sold in the U.S. are made of cotton, rayon, or blends of rayon and cotton.
Rayon is made from cellulose fibers derived from wood pulp. In this process the wood pulp is
bleached. At one time, bleaching the wood pulp was a potential source of trace amounts of
dioxin in tampons, but that bleaching method is no longer used. Rayon raw material used in U.S.
tampons is now produced using elemental chlorine-free or totally chlorine free bleaching
processes. These methods for purifying wood pulp are described below:
Elemental chlorine-free bleaching refers to methods that do not use elemental chlorine
gas to purify the wood pulp. These methods include the use of chlorine dioxide as the
bleaching agent as well as totally chlorine-free processes. Some elemental chlorine-free
bleaching processes can theoretically generate dioxins at extremely low levels, and dioxins
are occasionally detected in trace amounts in mill effluents and pulp. In practice, however,
this method is considered to be dioxin free. Totally chlorine-free bleaching refers to use of bleaching agents that contain no chlorine.
These methods are also dioxin-free. Totally chlorine-free methods include, for example,
use of hydrogen peroxide as the bleaching agent.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked with wood pulp producers to promote
use of dioxin-free methods because dioxin is an environmental pollutant. Because of decades of
pollution, dioxin can be found in the air, water and ground. Therefore, while the methods used
for manufacturing tampons today are considered to be dioxin-free processes, traces of dioxin
may still be present in the cotton or wood pulp raw materials used to make tampons. Thus, there
may be trace amounts of dioxin present from environmental sources in cotton, rayon, or
rayon/cotton tampons.
When questions about dioxin arose a number of years ago, FDA asked tampon manufacturers to
provide information about their pulp purification processes and the potential for dioxin
contamination. Manufacturers of rayon tampons are also asked to routinely monitor dioxin levels
in the raw material used or the finished tampons. Manufacturers have provided FDA with test
results of studies conducted at independent laboratories, using the most sensitive test methods
available. Dioxin monitoring is a highly technical assay performed at only a few independent
expert laboratories in the U.S. The detectable limit of this assay is currently approximately 0.1
to 1 parts per trillion of dioxin.
Using these tests, dioxin levels in the rayon raw materials for tampons are reported to be at or
below the detectable limit of the state-of-the-art dioxin assay, i.e., approximately 0.1 to 1 parts
per trillion. FDA's risk assessment indicates that this exposure is many times less than normally
present in the body from other environmental sources, so small that any risk of adverse health
effects is considered negligible. A part per trillion is about the same as one teaspoon in a lake
fifteen feet deep and a mile square.
