Forever chemicals may be a plaintiff's lawyer's dream: they are everywhere, they sound frightening, and their name suggests exposure could lead to forever consequences. A new lawsuit alleging that PFAS in Carefree panty liners caused everything from yeast infections to multiple cancers opens the potential litigation floodgates.
For a plaintiff’s lawyer, the nice thing about “forever chemicals” like PFOA [1] is that it seems you can bring lawsuits about exposure—forever. On October 11, 2026, hundreds of women filed a personal injury case in California [2] alleging that PFOA exposure in Carefree panty liners caused a host of various personal injuries. While not yet a class action suit, it’s not the first case in the queue, either.
The Claim
The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs suffered a litany of “serious” health problems, including yeast infections; breast, ovarian, and kidney cancers; chronic inflammation; infections; high cholesterol; immune disorders; reduced fertility or infertility; thyroid disease; and “cancerphobia,” a litigation-driven disease (a fear of getting cancer) that gained prominence in asbestos litigation. [3] The case is essentially a product liability case, alleging that the design of pantyliners containing PFOA was defective and unreasonably dangerous. It named the manufacturers (Johnson & Johnson and its corporate affiliate, Kenvue) as defendants, along with the LA grocery store that sold them.
“In California, a defective product is generally characterized as a product with any sort of imperfection or fault in the product’s manufacturing, design, or labeling that poses an unreasonable risk to consumers when used as intended or in a reasonably foreseeable manner.”
The plaintiffs claim the manufacturers were notified in February 2024 that PFOA had been found in Carefree liners, which, under California’s Proposition 65, required warnings and consumer notification. Nonetheless, they claim the defendants continued to manufacture and sell the products without warnings or notice, even after California intentionally restricted PFAS, thereby concealing the chemical’s presence from consumers.
Jackpot or Bust?
It is hard to see how this suit will succeed, unless plaintiffs’ counsel are banking on ongoing research (which will take years to mature, perhaps emerging in tandem with the trial, which will also take years to occur). Indeed, research by the NIH is currently investigating the carcinogenic risks of these chemicals. So far, the research indicates only inconsistent associations for kidney cancer, with suggestive observations for testicular cancer—hardly cancers associated with pantyliner wearing. For breast cancer, the NIH working group reports, “…the epidemiologic evidence remains limited and inconclusive.” The NIH is also investigating whether PFAS is related to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate and thyroid cancer, again diseases where the exposure-connection is not logically or anatomically related to pantyliners.
The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has noted a correlation between PFOA and decreased immune response, dyslipidemia, and reduced fetal and infant growth. However, their main concern was PFAS exposure through ingestion from the water supply. Even the alarmist IARC, which first labeled PFOA a human carcinogen in 2023 (after classifying it as a possible human carcinogen in 2014, triggering the current fear-wave), links these chemicals only to kidney and testicular cancer.
In addition to the absence of reliable evidence establishing a causal relationship between PFOA and disease, cancer requires a time lag between first exposure and disease manifestation, with breast, ovarian, and thyroid cancers typically appearing ten to forty years after exposure. Since the plaintiffs’ claims apparently arose from the defendants’ actions after February 2024, it is well-nigh impossible that the claimed cancers arose from “PFAS-laden” pantyliner exposure. As for the ovarian cancers, one wonders how many plaintiffs also appeared in the baby-powder cases, where they claimed talcum powder was the cancer-witch on trial.
Even if a causal connection can be proven, it should be difficult or impossible to establish that exposure, mainly or solely from panty liners, was the culprit because PFAS are ubiquitous. So, why bother?
If You Don’t Succeed at First
This isn't the first time people have accused Carefree panty liners or other personal products. Under my “Jello theory of disease litigation,” plaintiffs cast wide nets in search of manufacturers’ deep pockets to raid, targeting any conceivable product to which they were exposed that has a bad rap. They hope that showing an alleged association between product exposure and disease, even if the research is scientifically unsound, will prompt settlement. Could PFAS be the new golden goose?
We’ve seen this tactic with false allegations that Tylenol causes autism and ADHD, that Zantac causes multiple cancers, or that baby powder (the J&J talc cases) causes ovarian cancer. With many cases recently settled, the plaintiffs’ bar must now forage elsewhere to blame their ovarian cancers or fertility-related issues, and PFAS-containing pantyliners or tampons are beckoning.
Fetish or Litigation Feast?
Panty liners (and other personal products) seem to enjoy a special fascination from the plaintiffs’ bar. The first in this series of panty-liner/personal product lawsuits began with a complaint filed in September 2024, the same day California enacted law banning intentional addition of PFAS to menstrual products. At that point, a product liability claim would have been too tenuous and premature to survive preliminary motions. But we have two ingredients of a plaintiff’s witch-hunt portfolio: a bad reputation for PFAS and injured, disease-stricken women. Too good to ignore.
So, rather than alleging personal injury, the first case focused on female products centered on failure to comply with California’s Proposition 65 [4], claiming a violation of the public’s right to be informed about exposure to “listed” harmful chemicals, including PFAS. The Ecological Alliance LLC brought the case, focusing on the Carefree brand and seeking an injunction and civil (financial) penalties against the manufacturer for failing to warn about PFOA. The Alliance claimed that California listed PFOA as a known reproductive toxin in November 2017 and as a carcinogen in February 2022. Oddly, in January 2025, Ecological Alliance dropped its suit, although with the proviso that they could refile it. To date, they have not.
One explanation for the pullback was the lack of reliable testing methods to detect PFAS in solids, which hindered proof of PFAS presence and exposure levels (and would affect dose (exposure) assessments, impeding proof of specific causation in future personal injury cases).
Smoke and Fire
Given the stagnant state of the science on PFOA-claimed harms and their failure to refile, one must wonder whether Ecological Alliance’s 2024 suit was a vehicle to sensitize potential jurors to future litigation.
In fact, by 2025, The Hill was reporting on “toxic forever chemicals’ in reusable menstrual products, perhaps a harbinger of the onslaught of Feminine Hygiene Products cases (allegedly garnished with PFAS and heavy metals, e.g., lead) brought in June of this year. These cases alleged reproductive harm, miscarriages, chronic heavy bleeding, and pelvic pain from Tampax tampons. [5] So far, the seven-member class action has survived preliminary motions to dismiss.
The case likely relies on an early study which noted dermal exposure of PFAS presents a potentially “significant exposure pathway for PFAS when present in feminine hygiene products.” However, the authors recognized the paucity of research on PFAS dermal exposure, making their comment speculative (and thus inadmissible) at best. But where there is smoke, there could be fire. Of course, you need something to ignite the fire. University-backed sites, like the PFAS Project Lab at Northeastern University, which reports on these cases, are made to order.
Forever and a day
PFAS in feminine hygiene products may raise legitimate questions about exposure and safety, but detecting a chemical is not the same as demonstrating risk of harm, much less proving that a particular product caused a particular illness. In the courtroom, the distinction between a plausible hazard and a proven injury can become blurred, especially when frightening headlines, scientific uncertainty, and the prospect of substantial settlements reinforce one another. Forever chemicals may persist in the environment, but allegations should not become facts simply by being repeated—forever.
[1] PFOA, perfluorooctanoic acid, is one of the three types of PFAS, often called a forever chemical because it is difficult to biodegrade. They share unusually strong carbon-fluorine bonds, allowing the chemicals to repel water, oil, and stains and withstand heat. People have used them for decades in products ranging from non-stick cookware (known as C-8) to water-repellent clothing. The first PFAS-related personal injury case was brought in 1999 against DuPont and others by people living downstream of the manufacturing plant and having heavy exposures. After several years and a unique case-management order, that case settled.
[2] Lindsey, et al. v. Edgewell Personal Care Company, et al.
[3] Other plaintiffs have claimed it causes developmental effects in children, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, increased risk of prostate and testicular cancer, decreased immunity, and hormonal dysregulation.
[4]Officially, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 protects the state's drinking water sources from contamination by chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm, and requires businesses to inform Californians about exposure to such chemicals.
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Barbara Pfeffer Billauer JD MA (Occ. Health) PhD
Professor Barbara Pfeffer Billauer is an internationally recognized scholar of public health law, bioethics, and the laws of medical care, focusing on the integration of science and law and its impact on day-to-day policy and legal outcomes. She has lectured and published extensively, in scholarly journals and law reviews, and has written and edited seven books for lay and academic audiences.
