Toxic Shock Syndrome is caused by a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus, which, it was discovered, flourished in the conditions created by ultra-absorbent tampons that sound like they were dreamed up by the Bride of Frankenstein. The unwillingness of our regulatory agencies to talk openly about periods and the dismissal of women’s reproductive health issues as merely “cosmetic” wound up endangering women’s lives when, in 1980, doctors noticed a severe uptick in cases of a condition called Toxic Shock Syndrome among women who used tampons. And yet, many of these new ingredients were not rigorously tested on humans because, prior to the mid-1970s, the FDA categorized menstrual products as “cosmetic” appliances, not medical ones. Of course, we don’t’ tend to think of tampons and sanitary napkins as a “medical technology.” In fact, I suspect that many of us would prefer not to think of them at all, but, of course, they are in the sense that they are devices that we wear inside of our bodies and in that they are subject to constant “innovation” in the form of new chemical additives (bleaches, scents and deodorizers) and more absorbent synthetic materials. In the past, this bias has plagued our ability to judge the safety of the simplest, most commonplace medical technologies that women encounter over the course of their lives: menstrual products. In an interview with Broadly, Wider revealed how studies have shown that “doctors, regardless of gender, tend to undertreat female patients and take longer to administer medication to women.” In the same piece, Emilie Marthe reports that “period and reproductive pain is often chronically undertreated and underfunded” and “women’s pain is more likely to be perceived as ‘emotional’ or ‘psychogenic’ rather than caused by biological factors.” In other words, medical professionals have a history of letting stereotypical attitudes about women interfere with their ability to effectively treat their patients. Jennifer Wider, the spokeswoman for the Society for Women’s Health Research, suggests that it is not. One wonders: Is it merely a coincidence that women’s medical problems are the ones that regulators and doctors have tended to ignore?ĭr.
These women have lost jobs, been forced onto permanent disability and lost the ability to enjoy sexual intimacy. It stays with them as they describe how their lives have been upended by their ordeals. These women’s stories are both disgusting and terrifying, but the camera refuses to succumb to our impulse to look away from them. It is noteworthy that many of the malfunctioning devices featured in the film are related in some way to women’s health: a non-hormonal contraceptive device that punctured women’s internal organs from the inside, a pelvic mesh designed to help prevent incontinence following childbirth that caused vaginal scarring and debilitating pain, a robotic surgical technique that left women who had gotten hysterectomies with their intestines literally falling out of them through their vaginas. Perhaps, the documentary suggests, medicine isn’t the right place for us to move fast and break things. Meanwhile, the architects of their pain gather at lavish conventions and brag to each other using the rhetoric of Silicon Valley about how they see themselves as “disruptors” of traditional medicine who need freedom from government oversight in order to “unleash innovation” onto the health industry.
Rather than remaining isolated in their own personal hells, these patients-turned-activists gathered together online to share their stories, lobby for stricter regulations and offer each other much-needed support. The film, which details the failure of the FDA to provide proper oversight of medical technologies, is filled with graphic testimonials from patients who endured horrific pain due to faulty devices and who were often dismissed by their doctors as overly sensitive or scolded for exaggerating when they went in for help. Halloween is just around the corner and Kirby Dick’s documentary The Bleeding Edge (2018) is appropriate for the season in that it is most definitely not for the faint of heart. This column chronicles all of the must-watch documentary films available for streaming. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.Įvery week, Megan Condis and a group of friends get together for Documentary Sunday, a chance to dive into the weird, the wacky, the hilarious and the heartbreaking corners of our culture. This column is reprinted from Unwinnable Monthly #108.
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