Tampax Class Action Lawsuit: Pending Cases and FDA Study

The Tampax class action lawsuit is actually three separate cases pending against Procter & Gamble, all alleging that Tampax Pearl and related tampons contain undisclosed lead. As of early 2026, no class has been certified, no settlement exists, and there is no claim form to fill out. You cannot formally join or sign up at this stage.¹

What the Lawsuits Claim

The core allegation is that Tampax Pearl and Tampax Radiant tampons contain lead, and that P&G sold them with marketing language such as “All Day Comfort & Protection,” “#1 U.S. Gynecologist Recommended Tampon Brand,” and “Clinically Tested Gentle to Skin” without disclosing it.² The lead California complaint argues that with typical daily use, the lead exposure exceeds the 0.5-microgram daily maximum allowable dose level under California’s Proposition 65. Plaintiffs also argue that because tampons are used vaginally, absorbed lead bypasses the digestive filtering that would apply to ingested substances.³

P&G has denied that the products pose a health risk and has challenged both the testing methodology and the plausibility of the claims.⁴

The Three Pending Cases

Barton v. The Procter & Gamble Company is the lead case. Filed July 29, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California (Case No. 3:24-cv-01332), it has survived a motion to dismiss and is now in discovery. On August 8, 2025, Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel denied most of P&G’s motion, ruling that whether the detected lead levels are “unsafe” is a factual question that cannot be decided at the pleading stage.⁴ P&G’s attempt to move the case to Ohio was denied in December 2025.⁵

Sanchez et al. v. P&G was filed November 19, 2025, in the Southern District of Ohio (Case No. 1:25-cv-00852), P&G’s home jurisdiction. It makes similar lead-disclosure allegations and remains in the early pleading stage.⁶

Otkina et al. v. P&G was filed January 28, 2026, in the Northern District of Illinois (Case No. 1:26-cv-00773). The complaint alleges lead levels “between 12.6 and 40.8 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level standard for lead in drinking water.” No substantive rulings have been issued.⁷

None of the three has been certified as a class action, and the cases have not been consolidated.

Can You Join or File a Claim Right Now?

No. There is no claim form, no settlement fund, no payout program, and no claims administrator.¹ Because no court has certified a class, there is nothing to formally join.

Some plaintiffs’ law firms have posted intake forms inviting Tampax users to submit their information. Filling one out does not make you a party to the lawsuit and does not create an attorney-client relationship on its own.¹

What Would Have to Happen Before You Could File a Claim

For a Tampax purchaser to eventually receive money, one of the pending cases would need to reach class certification and then either settle or win at trial. If that happens, a claims administrator is normally appointed and class members are notified directly (often by email or mail) and through a settlement website with a claim form and deadline. Until that point, there is nothing to sign.

What Triggered the Litigation

The lawsuits followed a peer-reviewed study published in Environment International in July 2024. A team led by UC Berkeley postdoctoral scholar Jenni Shearston tested 30 tampons from 14 brands purchased in New York, London, and Athens, and detected all 16 metals they tested for, including lead, arsenic, and cadmium. The geometric mean lead concentration was 120 nanograms per gram, with lead higher in non-organic tampons and arsenic higher in organic ones.⁸

The authors were explicit about a limitation the lawsuits do not resolve: their study did not show that metals actually leach out of tampons and enter the bloodstream during use. They called for further research on that question.⁹

The FDA Study That Could Change the Cases

The FDA regulates tampons as medical devices. Its 2005 guidance recommends that tampons be free of dioxin and pesticide residues but does not require testing for heavy metals, and there is no federal requirement to list ingredients on tampon packaging.¹⁰

After the Berkeley study, the FDA commissioned an independent literature review, completed in September 2024, and started an internal bench study to measure whether metals actually leach from tampons under conditions that mimic normal use. As of late 2024, results had not been published.¹¹ If the FDA finds no leaching, it undercuts the lawsuits. If it finds leaching, it strengthens them.

Dates to Watch

The Barton case has a status conference set for March 2026, a mandatory settlement conference on December 10, 2026, and a final pretrial conference in January 2027.⁵ The December 2026 settlement conference is the earliest realistic point at which a claim process could begin to take shape, and only if the parties reach an agreement there. The Sanchez and Otkina cases are still too early to have set comparable schedules.

If you used Tampax Pearl or Tampax Radiant and want to be reachable when notice does go out, keep receipts or purchase records where you can find them and watch official court-approved settlement notices rather than unofficial sign-up pages.

1
AboutLawsuits.com. Tampax Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Tampons Contain Unhealthy Levels of Lead
2
ClassAction.org. Barton v. The Procter and Gamble Company – Complaint
3
ClassAction.org. Tampax Pearl Lawsuit Claims Tampons Contain Dangerous Amounts of Lead
4
Top Class Actions. Procter Gamble Must Face Class Action Lawsuit Over Lead in Tampons
5
CourtListener. Barton v. The Procter & Gamble Company – Docket
6
Top Class Actions. P&G Sued Over Alleged Lead Contamination in Tampax Tampons
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Top Class Actions. P&G Hit With Another Class Action Over Alleged Lead in Tampax Pearl Tampons
8
PubMed. Tampons as a Source of Exposure to Metal(loid)s
9
NPR. Tampons Heavy Metals Study
10
NPR. Tampon Metals FDA Congress Democratic Women’s Caucus
11
FDA. Biocompatibility and Toxicology Program Research for Medical Devices