The Government Is Alerted of Toxic Shock Syndrome Associated with Tampon Use in 1980

The Government is Alerted of Toxic Shock Syndrome Associated with Tampon Use in 1980

While Dr. James K. Todd had identified toxic shock syndrome (“TSS”) in children as early as 1978, the syndrome was not brought to the attention of the Center for Disease Control (“CDC”) until 1980 when they began receiving reports from health care practitioners and state health departments.[25] Approximately 97 percent of the cases reported involved menstruating women.[26] The potentially fatal disease causes women to experience fever, shock, low blood pressure, skin rashes and liver and kidney abnormalities.

The CDC created a task force to study the phenomenon, which began by drafting a restrictive definition of the new “disease.” On May 23, 1980 they published a report, which indicated a strong correlation between the new “disease” and menstruation.[27] In a second bulletin published June 27, 1980, the CDC established a close association between incidents of TSS and tampon use.

Somewhere in the middle of June, before its second bulletin on TSS was published, the CDC invited tampon manufacturers to Atlanta, GA to learn of its findings. The CDC asked manufacturers for information concerning tampon manufacturing and vaginal physiology and microbiology, but the manufacturers had no information to offer. Consequently, the CDC then undertook its own microbiological studies. Within a period of three to four weeks the CDC had established that the symptoms of TSS are caused by a particular type of toxin secreted by a particular strain of bacteria known as staphylococcus aureus.[29] In response, in the summer of 1980,