A TikTok with millions of views about how titanium dioxide can cause cancer and other health problems prompted calls for the platform to throw away all products that match that description. You should know that experts want you to relax and not worry about your feminine hygiene products.
The virtual freak out on TikTok over titanium dioxide, a natural mineral approved by the Food and Drug Administration, appears to have started with one video posted at the beginning of the week. In the video, which has received nearly eight million views and 1.5 million likes at the time of publication, user Rachel Morgan holds up a box of organic cotton core tampons from the brand L., owned by Proctor & Gamble, and tells users to stop using them.
Morgan was shown a video of a girl who had experienced two weeks of excessive bleeding and extreme pain, ovarian cysts, and irreversible uterine damage after using the same brand of feminine hygiene products.
She's going to get checked for cancer. Are you aware of why? If you don't know, titanium dioxide is one of the ingredients that can cause cancer. Even though my container doesn't say it, it's getting thrown out anyways. Call a lawyer if you have any adverse symptoms like her.
Morgan's TikTok has received more than 30,000 comments on the platform and spurred countless video responses from other users and creators swearing off feminine hygiene products. Some brands of feminine hygiene products tried to take advantage of the fear gripping users on the platform by announcing that their products did not have titanium dioxide.
Doctors on TikTok and across social media say that there is no evidence that titanium dioxide in menstrual cups causes harm. According to experts that spoke to Gizmodo, there is no evidence that titanium dioxide is unsafe to use in food or other products.
According to an email from Dr. Ryan Marino, a medical toxicologist and assistant professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, inhaling titanium dioxide is a possible cause of cancer. Marino said that it is only when the mineral is in the air that it is a real concern.
Marino pointed out that titanium dioxide has not been found to cause genetic damage in humans.
Rats, mice and other animals are not applicable to humans. Marino said that animal studies cannot be generalized to people. The high-profile studies in mice showing inflammation and genetic changes involved force ingestion of massive amounts of titanium dioxide, which would not be possible for every day Americans to replicate through consumer product exposure.
Marino speculated that the confusion and recent attention to titanium dioxide was related to the European Food Safety Authority's decision to ban the mineral in 2021.
Marino said that they are worried about the possibility of something happening that has never been shown to happen.
Mars is being sued for not revealing that Skittles had titanium dioxide in it. The toxicologist stated that the lawsuit is based on gross misinterpretation of the available data to claim a human cancer risk. No such evidence exists, he said.
One of the doctors that came out this week to try to reassure individuals that their tampons were not "toxic death sticks" is an OB/ GYN who frequently debunks online advice.
As a result of the videos on TikTok, she said she had received panicked messages from women worried that their pre-cancer of the cervix was due to their use of feminine hygiene products. These videos were used to spread fear.
The chemical composition of titanium dioxide doesn't cause it to be absorbed by the vagina.
She wrote that titanium dioxide isn't dissolved in water and that it won't get absorbed by the body. You don't have to worry about the blood soaked tampon string leaking into your vagina.
The point is to have titanium dioxide stay on the fabric. She said that research shows that fabrics with titanium dioxide that are washed a lot release less of the mineral. This wouldn't apply because no one is washing a t-shirt and reuses it.
The University of Illinois at Chicago's Dr. Katrine Wallace has more than 267,000 followers on her TikTok account. According to Wallace, anecdotal stories like the one in Morgan's TikTok get a lot of shares and comments because they are sensational.
It is important to remember that correlation does not mean causation.
"Just because someone had health problems after using something doesn't mean an ingredient in that thing caused the problem." People will listen to the sensationalized video instead of having a real discussion with their doctor or health care provider.
Gizmodo reached out to TikTok multiple times on Thursday asking if it would take any action on content crying wolf about the dangers of titanium dioxide and tampons, but did not receive a response. We reached out to the company for comment multiple times, but they didn't reply.
Morgan's TikTok as well as others on the subject with the #titaniumdioxide were still on the platform as of the time of this article. Doctors and experts tried to calm the panic, but they were not the majority.
Lincoln told people to use pads or menstrual cups if they were still worried. It is not the most scientific way to figure out what is going on because we see one TikTok of someone having a problem and say, 'this is what caused it'.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
