Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Salon
Salon
Lifestyle
Kelly McClure

Amy Schumer linked to tampon shortage

Amy Schumer Getty/Valerie Macon

Inflation has led to a 10% increase in the cost of tampons over the past year and now there's a full-on nationwide shortage. But what does this have to do with Amy Schumer?

In 2020, a series of Tampax ads featuring Schumer debuted and a spokesperson for Procter & Gamble credits them with causing a significant increase in sales, telling a reporter for Time that "retail sales growth has exploded."

In response to the claim, Schumer posted a screenshot of an article on the shortage that used an image of her ad and commented "Whoa I don't even have a uterus."

RELATED: The discomfort of "Expecting Amy" continues the evolution of Schumer's unvarnished shtick

"What's been going on for a couple months is that organizations call us up and say, 'we need tampons,' and we go to our warehouse and there's nothing there," Dana Marlowe, the founder of I Support the Girls said in a quote to Time. 

"To put it bluntly, tampons are next to impossible to find. ... I would say it's been like this for a solid six months," says Michelle Wolfe, a radio host in Bozeman, Montana.


Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.


While Procter & Gamble recognizes the shortage, their claim that Schumer's ad is the cause of it presents a further batch of questions that they don't have a clear answer for beyond statements that efforts are being made to fix it.

"The Tampax team is producing tampons 24/7 to meet the increased demand for our products," the company said in a statement to NBC. "We are working with our retail partners to maximize availability."

"In terms of the speed of the increase, it's the sharpest I've ever seen," Pricie Hanna, a raw materials consulting expert, said in a quote to Bloomberg. "At this point, people are scratching their heads and saying, 'This is something new." 

Read more:

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.