Once again, customers miss out at American drugstores. After a shortage of baby food, they are now also faced with a shortage of tampons.
Karlijn van Houwelingen
The tampon shelf is often empty, and tampons are being sold online for extortionate prices; American women suffer from a tampon shortage in their country. Also on Amazon, the apparent all-rounder among American retail chains, the most popular brands are unavailable or very expensive. A box of 32 tampons for over 16 euros is no exception.
Many women miss out and share on social media how they had to drive past a series of stores for menstrual products, near despair. Organizations that distribute them in poor communities are at a loss. Period, an organization that supplies tampons and sanitary towels to schools and shelters for homeless women, among others, is no longer accepting new customers because much less donations are coming in.
Raw materials scarce
Manufacturers say they are facing supply chain problems. Procter & Gamble, the firm behind America’s popular Tampax, recently told investors that sourcing raw materials like cotton and plastic is expensive and difficult. According to the makers of ob tampons, Edgewell, factories have suffered from shortages of personnel as well as lack of raw materials. Reports of the shortage are also causing women to try to stockpile additional supplies, further fueling demand.
Doctors are now warning that wearing tampons longer in the hopes of needing less is a very bad idea. That increases the risk of infections. American drugstores mainly sell tampons with applicators. Out of necessity, the more common tampons in Europe are now also placed in the shopping carts online without an additional attachment. Women advise each other about alternatives such as reusable menstrual cups and menstrual underwear.
Sensitive moment
The scarcity comes at a sensitive time: many American parents have been struggling for weeks to get enough baby food. In some regions, 90 percent of normal offerings were unavailable earlier this month. Many retailers do not give customers more than three or four cans at a time and the White House has already flown in cans of powder from Australia and the United Kingdom on several occasions.
Politicians are now also interfering with the national tampon stock. New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hasan wrote a letter to the CEO of Procter & Gamble to complain about rising prices and scarcity. “Companies like yours that manufacture tampons should take immediate action to increase tampon inventory and end unnecessary price increases.”
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