A history of Toxic Shock Syndrome In 1978, doctors in Denver,
Colorado observed several healthy children who suddenly and
mysteriously developed a serious, life-threatening illness with no
visible source. Their condition, which doctors dubbed ‘toxic
shock syndrome’ (TSS) was rare, but observed with increasing
frequency over the next few years in young women, and was soon
learned to be associated with a bacterium and the use of
high-absorbency tampons that had only recently gone on the market.
In 1980, the Centers for Disease Control identified Rely tampons,
produced by Procter & Gamble, as having the greatest
association with TSS over every other tampon, and the company
withdrew them from the market. To this day, however, women are
frequently warned about contracting TSS through tampon use, even
though very few cases are diagnosed each year. Historian Sharra
Vostral’s Toxic Shock is the first and definitive history of TSS.
Vostral shows how commercial interests negatively affected
women’s health outcomes; the insufficient testing of the first
super-absorbency tampon; how TSS became a ‘women’s disease,’
for which women must constantly monitor their own bodies. Further,
Vostral discusses the awkward, veiled and vague ways public health
officials and the media discussed the risks of contracting TSS
through tampon use because of social taboos around discussing
menstruation, and how this has hampered regulatory actions and
health communication around TSS, tampon use, and product safety. A
study at the intersection of public health and social history,
Toxic Shock brings to light the complexities behind a stigmatized
and under-discussed issue in women’s reproductive health.
Importantly, Vostral warns that as we move forward with more and
more joint replacements, implants, and internal medical devices, we
must understand the relationship of technology to bacteria and
recognize that both can be active agents within the human body. In
other words, unexpected consequences and risks of bacteria and
technology interacting with each other remain.
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