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Tampon shortage fueled by supply chain woes and materials shortage, not customer base
View of tampon products at a Duane Reade in New York City on June 10, 2022. Top retailers and manufacturers recently acknowledged the shortages, confirming complaints that have been circulating on social media for months. (via the AP) View of tampon products at a Duane Reade in New York City on June 10, 2022. Top retailers and manufacturers recently acknowledged the shortages, confirming complaints that have been circulating on social media for months. (via the AP)

View of tampon products at a Duane Reade in New York City on June 10, 2022. Top retailers and manufacturers recently acknowledged the shortages, confirming complaints that have been circulating on social media for months. (via the AP)

Grace Abels
By Grace Abels June 17, 2022
Madison Czopek
By Madison Czopek June 17, 2022

If Your Time is short

  • Continued supply chain volatility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of the raw materials used to make tampons and increasing material and manufacturing costs are all factors driving the current tampon shortage, experts said.

  • This volatility includes international factors such as coronavirus lockdowns in China that slowed both manufacturing and the movement of goods — and domestic transportation issues.

  • There is no relationship between the tampon shortage and the trans population in the U.S., contrary to claims by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others.

In 2020, an Oregon-based nonprofit that works to supply free menstrual products to communities in need, distributed over 2 million tampons.

In 2021, it distributed over 1.5 million. 

Halfway through 2022, the group, called PERIOD, has only been able to send out 200,000 tampons, according to Kate Barker Swindell, the nonprofit’s service and operations manager. The group distributes supplies to schools, religious organizations, food banks and other locations, but its efforts are being hampered by an ongoing tampon shortage in the U.S.  

While the shortage is sure to have an impact on women in general, experts said those who already struggle to access effective menstrual products due to price and other conditions will be most affected.

People in search of tampons began noticing empty shelves back in April and sharing their struggles online. The issue has recently also drawn headlines from mainstream news outlets and caught the attention of elected officials

Amid increasing awareness and fears about the shortage, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has repeatedly and baselessly claimed transgender men are to blame, the latest in a number of transphobic remarks the lawmaker has made, including once suggesting that use of violence against trans people would be appropriate.

"Now there’s a shortage of tampons, and that’s probably because men are buying tampons," Greene said in a June 13 interview with Brian Glenn, adding, "They put tampons in men’s bathrooms."

She echoed similar sentiments that evening on Twitter when she shared an NPR story about the shortage mocking its use of the phrase "people who menstruate" and advised people looking for tampons to check "some men’s restrooms" because "apparently they are available there." On June 15 Greene tweeted a video of someone sarcastically praising the availability of menstrual products in what he suggests is a men’s restroom. Greene wrote: "Women can’t find tampons on store shelves, but men find tampons in their bathrooms."

Trans people are not causing the tampon shortage, however. It’s also not due to efforts to increase access to menstrual products, including in men’s public restrooms.

"It’s true that there are trans people who menstruate, and it’s true that they’ve always been using menstrual products, so that’s not really the cause of a shortage at this moment," said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, a Women and Democracy Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. "They’re not all being hidden in some men’s room and that’s why there’s a shortage for everybody else. That’s just absurd." 

So, no, tampons aren’t being squirreled away in restrooms. The real reasons behind the tampon shortage are related to ongoing supply chain issues and materials shortages. 

Supply chain issues are causing a tampon shortage in stores across the country. Tampons and other menstrual products are seen on June 11, 2022 at a local CVS store in Scarsdale, New York. (via the AP)

Supply chain volatility and cotton shortages

Tampons are a commonly used menstrual product made of absorbent cotton or rayon fibers. Often sold with a plastic or cardboard applicator, tampons are single-use and designed to absorb menstrual flow.

Shortages of materials used in tampons are a reason why people are seeing empty shelves at stores, said Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University.

Continued supply chain volatility due to the COVID-19 pandemic is also driving the current shortage, said Pricie Hanna, who co-founded Price Hanna Consultants, a firm that specializes in raw materials and supply chain trends for nonwoven and hygiene absorbent products such as tampons. 

This volatility includes international factors such as coronavirus lockdowns in China that slowed both manufacturing and the movement of goods — and domestic transportation issues.

"Truckers, we don’t have enough of them in the U.S.," Hanna said. "Even if we get raw materials in or finished product into the U.S. market, we have to get them to the retailers." 

The U.S. is also not growing enough cotton to meet demand, Penfield said. High-demand medical products such as face masks require cotton, and China has been importing more cotton from the U.S. than ever before, he said. Need for plastic also exceeds supply, Penfield said. And when the materials are available, it often takes a long time to get them to tampon manufacturers.

There aren’t many manufacturing facilities that make tampons in the U.S., so that’s factoring into the shortage as well, experts said. 

Hanna said the most recent COVID-19 shutdowns in China have demonstrated the need to manufacture more materials domestically, such as rayon. "But it’s not so easy to build a big rayon plant," she said.

The situation is further complicated because tampons are regulated as a Class II medical device, meaning manufacturers are required to provide data about the safety of their tampons and applicators to the Food and Drug Administration.

"You need to get approval if you make a material change in the raw materials that are used. … Because you wear them inside the body, it’s highly regulated," Hanna said.

Hanna and Penfield said the news of the shortage will likely cause people to overbuy and stockpile tampons — inevitably making the problem worse. In addition, Hanna said demand for tampons typically increases in the summer months, due to activities like swimming that render products like pads impractical.

Edgewell, a manufacturer of tampons, told PolitiFact that it has operated continuously throughout the pandemic, but two separate omicron surges — one in the U.S. in late 2021 and another in Canada in early 2022 — caused workforce shortages that slowed production. Edgewell said it expects inventory should return to normal levels in the coming weeks. 

P&G, another manufacturer of menstrual products, did not address specific causes for the shortage, but said production continues and it expects the shortage to be temporary.

People seeking alternatives to tampons can turn to pads (disposable and reusable), menstrual cups and period underwear — and there are no current signs of a shortage of these products. 

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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Our Sources

Interview with Pricie Hanna, founding partner of Price Hanna Consultants, a firm specializing in hygiene absorbent products, June 15, 2022 

Interview with Marni Sommer, associate professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, June 15, 2022

Interview with Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, the Women and Democracy Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and author of the book Periods Gone Public, June 15, 2022

Email interview with Patrick Penfield, a professor of practice — supply chain management and director of executive education at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, June 15, 2022

Interview with Dana Marlowe, Founder and Executive Director of I Support The Girls, June 15, 2022

Interview with Kate Barker Swindell, Service and Operations Manager at PERIOD, Jun 15, 2022

Email interview with Sheng Lu, associate professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware, June 15, 2022

Emailed statement from P&G Media Relations, June 15, 2022

Emailed statement from Edgewell, June 15, 2022

Time, "The Great Tampon Shortage of 2022: The Supply Chain Problem No One’s Talking About," June 7, 2022

The 19th, "A tampon shortage, during a formula shortage, during a child care shortage," June 14, 2022

The 19th, "Senator asks tampon makers how they’re going to fix the shortage," June 13, 2022

Fortune, "‘It’s probably worse than Wuhan’: Experts warn China’s COVID-19 lockdowns will once again cripple global supply chains," April 19, 2022 

The Washington Post, "Yes, there’s a tampon shortage. Here’s why." June 13, 2022 

The New York Times, "Why Your Preferred Tampons May Be Hard to Find," June 13, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tweet, June 13, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tweet, June 15, 2022

RSBN, "MTG Breaks Down The Current Chaos in DC 6/13/22," June 13, 2022

NPR, "It's not just you: Tampons are harder to find — and pricier," June 12, 2022

Newsweek, "Marjorie Taylor Greene Makes Transgender Jokes With Her Intern in Video," June 15, 2022 

Newsweek, "Marjorie Taylor Greene Claims Violence Needed To 'Stand Up' To Trans People," Feb. 24, 2022

USA Today, "Marjorie Taylor Greene makes transphobic remarks about Illinois congresswoman's daughter," July 9 2021

The Independent, "Marjorie Taylor Greene becomes latest Republican to push baseless transgender rumour around Uvalde shooter | The Independent," May 30 2022

Business Insider, "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene made transphobic comments in conversation with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones," Feb. 24, 2022

ACLU, "Menstruation-Related Discrimination is Sex Discrimination — We Don't Need to Erase Trans or Non-Binary People to Make That Point," December 17 2019

The Daily Signal, "Striving for 'Menstrual Equity,' Oregon Puts Tampons in Men's Bathrooms at Public Schools, Colleges," May 4, 2022 

The Chronicle of Higher Education, "Tampons in Men's Rooms? It's Just a Small Part of 'Menstrual Equity,' Campus Activists Say," May 16, 2017

PolitiFact, "High prices and depleted shelves: Here's why the supply chain is a mess — and will be for a while," October 15, 2021

Reddit, "The great tampon shortage of current day", April 15, 2022

Bloomberg, "It's Getting More Expensive to Have Your Period, Thanks to Inflation," June 9, 2022  

Price Hanna Consultants website, accessed June 16, 2022

U.S. Food And Drug Administration, "The Facts on Tampons—and How to Use Them Safely," Sept. 30, 2020

U.S. Food And Drug Administration, "Product Classification: Tampon, menstrual, unscented," accessed June 16, 2022

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