Bethany Black (@BethanyBlack@mastodon.social)
mastodon.social
After all these years I’m rarely surprised by medical misogyny, but finding out that the research from the first ever tests on period products using blood instead of water were published LAST WEEK is one of those surprises.

Archive link to story here: https://archive.ph/HVNLH

Posted here because there is no community for Absolutely Infuriating (that I know of).

  • JoBoOPEnglish
    11·
    11 months ago

    Red blood cell capacity of modern menstrual products: considerations for assessing heavy menstrual bleeding

    No study exists comparing the capacity of currently available menstrual hygiene products using blood.

    They don’t have to explain how they know. Literature searches are standard, and done before doing research like this. Funders want to know if they’re wasting their money on a question that has already been answered, and whether the proposed methods are appropriate given what has been done, and learnt, before.

    That’s not to say that all literature searches are perfect. You can check on PubPeer for any howls of anguish from unacknowledged researchers. But the only legal requirement for testing is tampons due to toxic shock syndrome and its relationship to absorbency. It’s really unlikely that manufacturers are doing the tests without being forced to and, if they have done any, really unlikely they would fail to publish their results if they liked the results. If they are suppressing unwelcome results, the research might as well not exist.

    • DaveDavesen@feddit.deEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Thank you very much for the paper.

      For a bold claim it would be better form to indicate how or at least with which search engine the search was done. But the claim is much smaller then the Guardian makes us believe. They do not say, that it is the first study, but that it is the only one with currently available products. Directly before this sentence they talk about the rising use alternative menstrual products, such as “menstrual cups, menstrual discs, menstrual underwear or reusable pads”.

      I would expect that manufacturer with some RnD budget will do more tests than the ones they publish. But if their results are inconclusive or unwelcome as you said, they will not publish it. They might also not publish good results for simple marketing reasons (“Bigger number is better”), but their product might still contain improvements due to those results.