New this week: Lil-lets advertisement: "How to make a packet of tampons disappear" (magazine from the United Kingdom, October 1988)

Would you stop menstruating if you could? (New entries)
Words and expressions for menstruation (Additions to America: "[I could] Cure the Plague" )
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

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first page | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address | contact the museum | privacy on this site | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads

More about asbestos in tampons

In 1981, Nancy Friedman wrote in Everything You Must Know About Tampons (Berkley Books, New York), p. 118:

In 1977, Well Being, a "new age" health and nutrition magazine, published an article advising readers not to use tampons because they contained anticoagulants, fiberglass, talc and asbestos. Similar information had already appeared in feminist publications. This time [the] Tampax [company] quickly responded, calling the magazine's claims unfounded, and Well Being retracted the article in a 1978 issue. But the damage had already been done: Dozens of other publications, including many women's newsletters, had picked up the information and circulated it.

She adds in a footnote:

Also in 1977, the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration tested five tampons and found no evidence of asbestos in any of them.

I had no idea the rumor had been around that long, predating even the toxic shock crisis of 1980 and the following years.

I refer you again to Dr. Tierno's comment about companies' adding asbestos to tampons: "absurd," and to the notice of the latest sighting of this rumor on the Internet.


Letters to your MUM

A writer from last week comments further:

Dear Harry,

Speaking of "Moral Court," there was an instant in the past when I was morally outraged by something which had happened to me, and wrote "a letter" about it, and a gentleman in Paris, whom I never met, read the letter via the Internet, and was inspired by it to make me a whole Web site!! It would be simply lovely if you could have a look at this letter and the Web site; you might find it very interesting indeed !! The url is

http://nunicunai.free.fr

You'll find the letter in WRITINGS. It's entitled "THE SPRING OF MY STALIN." It deals with something terrible which happened to me because of a painting I made and because of my writings... :(

Beneath that pdf file there is also a short excerpt from a novel that was inspired by all the madness :p

Hope you had a great thanksgiving!

Nuni


Enthusiastic guy wants to menstruate

Dear Mr. Finley,

I absolutely LOVE the MUM Web site, and I am glad that you once had a museum. I wish its doors were still open. I hate our society's negative feelings about menstruation. It is NOT a shameful thing. It is a beautiful thing. Much like you, I am a male (26) who is totally fascinated with women, their culture (that is nothing like that of us males), and their whole reproductive functions. I can honestly say with no embarassment that, even though I am a man, I would LOVE to menstruate. My girfriend knows this and has helped me in expressing these emotions. I wear a pad one week out of every month just like she does, and she and I enjoy discussing our periods. Keep up the GREAT work. Write back.

[I have never wanted to menstruate. Women's culture is interesting, however. I grew up with only male siblings with an Army colonel for a father; he went to West Point, as did my older brother {read more}. My poor mother, I think, would have appreciated some female companionship, what with her boys wrestling and playing cops and robbers and dragging various animals into the house. She tolerated all this very well, however.

[Soon I plan to put more information about my family on the site.]


Pap art exhibit starts 21 September in Delray Beach, Florida

I am writing to request your participation and assistance in an exciting and important project regarding women's health issues.

The world-renowned scientist and lover of the arts Dr. George Papanicolaou, better known as Dr. Pap, inventor of the Pap smear test, will be the subject of a special exhibition at the Cornell Museum of Art in Delray Beach, Florida, beginning September 21, 2000. The gala opening and artist's reception will be held on Thursday evening September 28, 2000. The foremost patient advocate and director of the Center For Cervical Health in the United States, Carol Ann Armenti, will be the keynote speaker.

The exhibition will run through November 12, 2000, and will feature recent works by international artist Olga Stamatiou, Dr. Papanicolaou's niece. Stamatiou's works will be available for acquisition and the profits will go toward:

1. The creation of "PAP MOBILES," vehicles that would be used to provide testing for under-served women in areas, with the highest incidence of cervical cancer.

2. The creation of a traveling multimedia art exhibition.

3. The production of a documentary film based on the life, work and scientific legacy of Dr. Papanicolaou and his wife Mary.

4. The Center for Cervical Health.

5. The Papanicolaou Woman's Corp.

Our organization "PAP" - Prevention and Protection - will have as its goal to raise awareness about women's health issues, including the importance of having regular Pap smears and the provision of information on new and existing methods for detecting cervical cancer.

The traveling exhibition, to be viewed in public spaces and museums, will be a multimedia environment drawing on and inspired by Dr. Pap's love of the arts and sciences. This environment will include permanent built-in units that will provide creative spaces for national and local women's health organizations to inform women on what is available involving health care.

The September 28th opening reception will also include international guest artists and feature a wide range of styles and media. A percentage of their work will benefit the above-mentioned projects.

Olympus Corporation of America will provide working microscopes and monitors along with technicians on opening night to demonstrate how Pap smears are read.



Washable-pad company for sale

Gayle Adams, owner of Feminine Options, wants to sell the company to someone willing to put time and energy into it. The Food and Drug Administration has already approved its products.

Call Gayle at (715) 455-1652 (Wisconsin, U.S.A.).

[See and read about washable pads.]


Call for Submissions: "The 100 Best Things About Menstruation"

Looking for one-liners up to three paragraphs describing a "best thing" about menstruation: Health-related, cultural, artistic; an experience shared with an older or younger relative, or with a partner; a dream, political statement, joke, proverb, and/or something overheard at a party; scientific, sexual and/or religious . . . .

Be creative, be precise, and make it a one-liner up to three paragraphs.

The book will start out with best thing #1:

"Menopause."

Which is a "joke" given to me by a woman in Australia - however, I think it accurately expresses the menstruphobia most people feel, and is a good starting point for the general audience the book is aimed at.

From there, the book is a journey through all stages and aspects of the lifetime menstrual cycle - and the last several "best things" will be about menopause. So hopefully the reader will be brought full circle - they will recognize their own menstruphobia in the first best thing, but by the end of the book, they may be surprised to find themselves feeling a bit . . . menstrufriendly!

Please include contact information for you and/or your group EXACTLY as you would wish it to appear in the book - I think it will save a bit of hassle down the road!

Any best things that don't make it into the book will be included in a section on the Menstrual Monday Web site entitled "More Best Things About Menstruation." I'd like the book to be a snapshot of the worldwide menstrual movement in year 2000 - so just like a group photo, there's going to be some adjusting and moving people around and asking people to tilt their head a bit to the left, etc. . . i.e., as editor of the book, I may e-mail back and ask you to expand your best thing(s), or give some specific examples . . . so I hope that's not going to put anybody off!!!

Here's another sample best thing:

#43. Cramping at the Savoy

I know it's traditional to lie in bed with a hot water bottle or heating pad when one has cramps, but I can remember working in a fast-food restaurant, and one day when I had my period, I'd worked an eight-hour shift from 6 am to 2 pm, and later that night, went dancing at 9 pm . . . I can remember being on the crowded dance floor, and shouting up to my partner, "the dancing's made my cramps go away!" and him shouting back (although I could barely hear him above the music): "GOOD!!!"

So maybe the whole purpose of having cramps is to propel us onto the dance floor!

Working deadline is October 1, 2000, for submissions.

Please feel free to e-mail me with your "best things," and any questions or comments you may have!

Geneva Kachman [who has written poetry and essays on this site and had toxic shock syndrome. She founded Menstrual Monday.]

www.menstrualmonday.org


Money and this site

I, Harry Finley, creator of the museum and site and the "I" of the narrative here, receive no money for any products or services on this site. Sometimes people donate items to the museum.

All expenses for the site come out of my pocket, where my salary from my job as a graphic designer is deposited.


You have privacy here

What happens when you visit this site?

Nothing.

I get no information about you from any source when you visit, and I have no idea who you are, before, during or after your visit.

This is private - period.


Is this the new millennium or even century?

You can get the correct information if you go to these pages published by the U S Naval Observatory:

http://psyche.usno.navy.mil/millennium/whenIs.html (that`s a capital "i" in

"whenIs")

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/faq/docs/millennium.html

A comprehensive site from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich will put right any doubts:

http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/new_mill.html


Tell Your Congressperson You Support the Tampon Safety and Research Act of 1999! Here's How and Why


Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a Public Official For Its Board of Directors

Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.

What public official out there will support a museum for the worldwide culture of women's health and menstruation?

Read about my ideas for the museum. What are yours?

Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law, finances and fund raising to the board.

Any suggestions?


Do You Have Irregular Menses?

If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome [and here's a support association for it].

Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked me to tell you that

Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility and is linked to diabetes.

Learn more about current research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University - or contact Jane Newman.

If you have fewer than six periods a year, you may be eligible to participate in the study!

See more medical and scientific information about menstruation.


New this week: Lil-lets advertisement: "How to make a packet of tampons disappear" (magazine from the United Kingdom, October 1988)

Would you stop menstruating if you could? (New entries)
Words and expressions for menstruation (Additions to America: "[I could] Cure the Plague" )
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

PREVIOUS NEWS
first page | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address | contact the museum | privacy on this site | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads

privacy on this site

© 2000 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org