“Hey, here’s a question. Is anything sacred? Is anything safe?” a woman asks her phone’s front-facing camera, a store shelf full of tampons behind her. She points at Tampax Radiant. “No.” Tampax Pearl. “No.” Kroger Regular Unscented. “Hard pass.” After clarifying that the video is not sponsored, she says, “I’m just trying to find something I can find for my body … and not be given cancer.”
The video, which has more than eight million views on TikTok, was posted on July 8, shortly after an academic study revealed that a dozen metals, from arsenic to zinc, were found in popular tampon brands sold in the United States and Europe. Panic about tampons quickly spread.
