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Toxic Protection / Confidence Shock / Forgembering / MUMbering |
Forgember: Verb
(combination ‘forget’ + ‘remember’) Definition:
1. To publicly go
through the motions of remembering, in such a way as to encourage others to
forget
2. To encourage others
to remember, but in such a way that they assign responsibility for past events
to the wrong parties
(see also: blaming
the victim)
3. To inadvertently bring about remembrance of
past events, without having had any intention of doing so
Forgembering,
forgembrance. Examples: Forgembered
history; solemn forgembrance; forgembering is easier than remembering
(see also: forgery,
forge)
At the Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health (MUM), a
number of web pages are devoted to tampon-related toxic shock syndrome
(TR-TSS), all curated by
Harry Finley.
Regarding the disastrous
Rely tampon, Finley tells the museum visitor:
“You’ll
appreciate the irony of its name.” However, Harry Finley’s own
treatment of toxic shock is often ironic – so ironic, in fact, MUM has its
own special version of forgembering – MUMbering. |
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“Harry Finley, founder and former director of MUM, and creator
of [MUM] Web site.”
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MUM,
topmost page banner, November 2006 |
Based on the childlike features
and the ratio of head size to neck circumference, the portrait to the far
right is probably of a prepubescent girl. Thus at MUM, the image of
someone who has not yet begun to menstruate is being used to represent
tampon-related toxic shock victims. |
Banner ads also accompany MUM toxic shock
“exhibits.” Below left, September 2006
banner ad. Below right, for
comparison purposes, medical artwork offered by netterimages.com, “Toxic
Shock Syndrome / Etiology and Pathogenesis,” price: $255 for one-year website license.
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Look Great
Naked
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Directly below, November 2006 banner ad accompanying
MUM toxic shock “exhibits.” Further
below, left, women with an interest in soul mates; right, women with an
interest in something else.
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Who's your Soul Mate? |
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Romance Writers Convention 2005 St. Louis |
2005 Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference Boulder,
Colorado |
MUM has received numerous endorsements, which are listed
on the left-hand side of the MUM index page.
One of them is to the right [Font colors MUM].
Below is the page banner from the Planned Parenthood
website.
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"It's fabulous that somebody out there is willing to . . . pull back the curtain." Mona Miller, national media relations director of the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, discussing
the museum in The Prince
George's Journal, Maryland, U.S.A. |
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However, MUM’s analysis of why the toxic shock outbreak
occurred has more in common with a gambler’s well-worn excuse, than a curator’s well-researched
explanation:
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“Very bad luck killed Procter
& Gamble's tampon business in 1980. That luck came from the even worse
luck of many women who used its very absorbent Rely tampon and either died or
suffered other consequences from toxic shock syndrome, an illness that starts
not only in the vagina but elsewhere and in men. (See and read more about Rely. And read the letter P&G sent to stop distribution
of the tampon, and some 1970s articles
criticizing the tampon.)” |
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The above hardly constitutes a
“pulling back of the curtain,” or to put it another way, demystification, of the
causal factors involved in the 1980s toxic shock outbreak in the United
States. To the right, a toxic shock
curtain from expandingrecords.com
– another example of the mystification, or “curtaining” of toxic shock
syndrome. What does the red dot
mean? The two fire
extinguishers? “Bad luck,” when
curator Finley uses it to explain toxic shock? |
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Later in the same
MUM toxic shock web page, curator Finley states: |
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“[P&G] re-entered [the tampon market] when it bought the premier name in tampons, in 1997, Tampax. It couldn't go wrong with a tampon tested since the early 1930s. Not that toxic shock cannot occur in any tampon, although it's very unlikely. And some women are more susceptible than others, which a test can determine.” |
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Below
is a description of a 1993 legal case
involving Tampax from findlaw.com.
What went wrong: Plaintiff not
heeding warning insert; plaintiff suing based on “inadequate failure to warn”
rather than “defective design”; plaintiff not receiving adequate medical care
soon enough; plaintiff lulled into false sense of security by Tampax advertising;
defective product design; plaintiff taught since early childhood to disregard
feelings of discomfort or sickness because those feelings were inconvenient
to others; or? |
“For example, in Sloman
v. Tambrands, Inc., 841 F. Supp. 699 (D. Md. 1993), the plaintiff
contracted TSS resulting in the amputation of both of her legs. In her
complaint against Tambrands, the manufacturer of Tambrands tampons, the
plaintiff alleged that she developed TSS as a "direct and proximate
result of using Defendant's 'Tampax' tampons and that Tambrands 'failed to
adequately, properly, and fully warn her of the dangers of TSS and thus
caused her to contract TSS.' " Id. at 700. The court granted
summary judgment for Tambrands with respect to the warnings issue, holding
that the defendant successfully demonstrated that it had complied with each
of FDA's requirements. Id. at 702. "As mandated by 21C.F.R. §
801.430 (c), the tampon package included an alert statement worded precisely
as required by the regulation, and Tampax's insert provided all the
information about TSS required by 21 C.F.R. § 801.430(d)." Id.
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But perhaps MOLT is
being too hard on MUM; after all, how can we expect an unpaid and untrained
museum curator to demystify TR-TSS, when Melanie P. Healey, President of
Proctor & Gamble’s global feminine care division, even though
“determined,” can’t demystify the menstrual cycle. |
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From the University of Richmond
Alumni Profiles, Winter 2006: “As president
of Procter & Gamble’s global feminine care division, Melanie P. Healey is
determined to demystify the menstrual cycle. “There’s
so much taboo about feminine care products globally,” says Healey, B’83.
“Many women have negative attitudes about their bodies and getting their
period. It’s a starting point for their teen years—how women perceive
themselves. It can be positive or negative. We need to get the period out of
the closet. We need to have this category be as positive a step toward
womanhood as shaving is toward manhood.” |
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Kroger coupon receipt, November
11, 2006, picked up by happenstance in the midst of curating this
exhibit. Note the “white pearl”
theme, leading to the conclusion that P&G President Healey’s actual strategy
is to take menstruation “out of the closet...and into the jewelry box.” Note that the only red on the
receipt is the border of the Kroger’s logo...which brings us full circle,
back to the Ritz Craker Tin
at the beginning of this MOLTXIBIT. |
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Forgetting,
remembering...or forgembering?
RETURN TO
TOXIC PROTECTION / CONFIDENCE SHOCK DIRECTORY
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Art,
Poetry and Music
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From Protection to Expression: The Future of Menstrual
Advertising |
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Menovulography:
the years from puberty to menopause, told as a story with pictures
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Contact
MOLT
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