{"id":484,"date":"2022-03-02T15:20:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T15:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/02\/a-lawsuit-could-accelerate-research-on-tear-gas-and-menstrual-changes\/"},"modified":"2022-03-02T15:20:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T15:20:19","slug":"a-lawsuit-could-accelerate-research-on-tear-gas-and-menstrual-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/02\/a-lawsuit-could-accelerate-research-on-tear-gas-and-menstrual-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"A lawsuit could accelerate research on tear gas and menstrual changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/1\/27\/22903099\/lawsuit-tear-gas-menstrual-cycle-portland-research\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/1\/27\/22903099\/lawsuit-tear-gas-menstrual-cycle-portland-research<\/a><br \/>\n<code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<div readability=\"184.2061482821\">\n<p class=\"p--has-dropcap\" id=\"CblBWy\">Lanora Vasquez wasn\u2019t at any of the protests against police brutality that spread through the city of Portland in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/c\/21355121\/new-civil-rights-movement-police-brutality-protests-film-videos-black-lives-matter\">summer of 2020<\/a>. But she lived in Portland, near where the protests happened and where police officers regularly fired off canisters of tear gas. Gas doesn\u2019t stay confined to one area \u2014 it spreads, and Vasquez says it spread into her home. <\/p>\n<p id=\"0xfoja\">During and after the protests, Vasquez said she experienced changes to her menstrual cycle, including severe spotting and major cramping. She <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/lanora-vasquez-sues-portland-oregon-says-tear-gas-caused-damage-her-menstrual-health-1657885\">attributes<\/a> those changes to tear gas exposure. And she isn\u2019t alone: many other people in the city also reported menstrual cycle changes after exposure to tear gas, and many believe that the two are linked. <\/p>\n<p id=\"0PBqGG\">Michael Fuller, a lawyer in Portland, says he\u2019s heard from dozens of people who\u2019ve had similar experiences to Vasquez. He\u2019s representing her in a lawsuit filed in December against the city of Portland alleging that the tear gas was responsible for changes in her menstrual cycle and asking for $10,000 in damages. \u201cThere\u2019s just an overwhelming number of anecdotal cases,\u201d Fuller says. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-left c-float-hang\">\n<aside id=\"76YPKc\"><q> These changes aren\u2019t benign<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"kOPAIO\">In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/6\/22\/21295159\/tear-gas-menstural-cycle-miscarriage-period-protests\">anecdotal reports<\/a> have linked tear gas to menstrual changes for years. These changes aren\u2019t benign \u2014 cramps can be debilitating, and because changes to menstrual cycles often indicate a medical problem, sudden differences can be distressing. Fuller believes people like Vasquez deserve to be compensated for their suffering, but he\u2019s a lawyer, not a doctor. And he recognizes that, while lots of people may have had this experience, there still hasn\u2019t been enough research to prove that tear gas directly <em>causes<\/em> menstrual changes. \u201cAnecdotally, it\u2019s obvious; scientifically, it\u2019s less clear,\u201d Fuller says. <\/p>\n<p id=\"Y8XBHe\">The lawsuit underscores the disconnect between how discoveries are made in court and in the lab, especially when the legal system is asked to handle a still-unsettled scientific question. Even if the lawsuit is successful \u2014 indicating that yes, cities can be held responsible for menstrual cycle disruptions after their police departments use tear gas \u2014 it doesn\u2019t change the fact that medical researchers still aren\u2019t able to conclusively say tear cause caused the changes. <\/p>\n<p id=\"09mCgb\">But if it\u2019s successful, researchers say the lawsuit could help hold cities and police departments more accountable for the use of a dangerous chemical weapon and propel the work that\u2019s looking for scientific clarity. Even with a legal decision, it\u2019d still be important to make the scientific case, says Asha Hassan, a doctoral student and researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health studying the link between tear gas and reproductive health. <\/p>\n<p id=\"CIBbMy\">\u201cA higher caliber of evidence is always the best thing, regardless of what litigation happens,\u201d she says. \u201cThat data is still needed.\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right c-float-hang\">\n<aside id=\"MSVRWM\"><q>\u201cA higher caliber of evidence is always the best thing\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"MUs1gH\">Prior to summer 2020, there were some sparse reports on the link between menstrual cycle disruption, miscarriage, and exposure to tear gas \u2014 mostly anecdotal information collected by human rights groups. There\u2019s also been decades of research on animals showing that the way tear gas affects their bodies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medrxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2020.10.11.20210955v1.full\">could impact hormone levels<\/a>, says Juniper Simonis, an ecology and evolutionary biologist, toxicologist, and founding member of the Chemical Weapons Research Consortium in Portland. That could point to a biological mechanism for the menstrual changes people exposed to tear gas experience. <\/p>\n<p id=\"epX3Mj\">But there hadn\u2019t been solid academic research looking at the question of how tear gas exposure impacts menstrual cycles in people. So in the aftermath of the 2020 protests, Hassan and a group of colleagues set out to conduct a more rigorous analysis. <\/p>\n<p id=\"aCw5pM\">The team surveyed over 2,000 adults exposed to tear gas in Portland during summer 2020. And they found that people exposed to tear gas said they had menstrual changes. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC8074355\/\">The research<\/a>, published in April 2021 in the journal <em>BMC Public Health<\/em>, found that the more exposure someone had to tear gas \u2014 a few days versus a single day, for example \u2014 the more likely they were to have menstrual disruptions like spontaneous bleeding or increased cramping.<\/p>\n<p id=\"14q0wb\">This study still isn\u2019t able to say that the tear gas is what directly caused the changes \u2014 the research simply uncovered a correlation. To establish a causal link, researchers would need to create controlled environments where people are exposed to tear gas and then track what happens to them after \u2014 an experiment that would never pass an ethics review board. That\u2019s why researchers focus on tracking after events like protests. <\/p>\n<p id=\"Y1JQZW\">To make matters more complicated, the exact components of tear gas are often murky, Hassan says. It\u2019s considered proprietary information by companies, so scientists can\u2019t untangle what chemicals specifically could be interacting with the body to produce the changes people are reporting.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-left c-float-hang\">\n<aside id=\"cho31u\"><q>scientific clarity may not be necessary for the lawsuit to be successful<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"7hHWFu\">Despite the limited research to date, causation is what Fuller\u2019s case is trying to prove. He\u2019s arguing that exposure to tear gas was responsible for his client\u2019s menstrual changes. And scientific clarity may not be necessary for the lawsuit to be successful. He won\u2019t need to prove to a scientific standard that exposure to tear gas caused his client\u2019s menstrual cycle disruption. A jury would just need to decide if it was more likely than not that the tear gas was a substantial factor, and he\u2019ll have experts who can testify in court that it was. <\/p>\n<p id=\"eu4SDc\">\u201cIt would certainly strengthen the case if it was generally accepted in the scientific community that there was a causal link between tear gas and interference with menstrual cycles,\u201d Fuller says. \u201cBut we\u2019re very comfortable with the level of evidence that we have.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"FbvbNU\">It\u2019s not a level of evidence scientists would be comfortable using to say that there\u2019s a cause-and-effect relationship here, though. \u201cI can see some relationships between the two, but ultimately, I don\u2019t think a successful trial would prove the case in the long run,\u201d says Rohini Haar, research fellow in the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley and medical expert with Physicians for Human Rights. \u201cIt would have to come from a scientific place for me.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"0bbXRF\">The gap between the evidence lawyers need and the evidence scientists need shows how differently each discipline tries to find answers. What convinces a jury doesn\u2019t necessarily convince a scientist. And a jury agreeing that tear gas was responsible for menstrual changes would not be considered evidence for a causal link by researchers \u2014 they\u2019d still have to run the experiments and pull the data. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right c-float-hang\">\n<aside id=\"4QxUnS\"><q>What convinces a jury doesn\u2019t necessarily convince a scientist<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"656iCX\">But that doesn\u2019t mean the groups are in tension or that a legal decision wouldn\u2019t be helpful to scientific experts. (Right now, the city is pushing back on the suit and disputing the claim that tear gas could have traveled to Vasquez\u2019s home, according to email correspondence between Fuller and the city\u2019s attorneys.) A legal win could draw more attention to the harms tear gas can do, driving funding for more scientific research. If doctors know very little about how tear gas exposure relates to menstrual cycle changes, they know even less about the effects of living in areas that are impacted by tear gas, like Fuller\u2019s client. <\/p>\n<p id=\"lTbhpQ\">\u201cWhat this kind of lawsuit can highlight is the need for continued work on the human impacts,\u201d Simonis says. \u201cThis was someone who lived in the area. And we have no general understanding of the level of impact this could have on someone who lives in these areas.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"hvMCYH\">A win, and more legal action that builds on that precedent, could also open new avenues for experts to get information about tear gas through legal proceedings \u2014 like its exact chemical makeup, for instance. Having a clear understanding of the chemicals involved would help researchers try to figure out the specific ways tear gas affects the body, Hassan says. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-end-para\" id=\"q0Peg7\">In her view, the more focus on the issue, the better. \u201cWe are just touching the very tip of the iceberg here in trying to get a better understanding of what the relationship is between tear gas and health.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/1\/27\/22903099\/lawsuit-tear-gas-menstrual-cycle-portland-research\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/1\/27\/22903099\/lawsuit-tear-gas-menstrual-cycle-portland-research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Lanora Vasquez wasn\u2019t at any of the protests against police brutality that spread through the city of Portland in summer of 2020. But she lived in Portland, near where the protests happened and where police officers regularly fired off canisters of tear gas. Gas doesn\u2019t stay confined to one area \u2014 it spreads, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,26],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-science","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A lawsuit could accelerate research on tear gas and menstrual changes - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/02\/a-lawsuit-could-accelerate-research-on-tear-gas-and-menstrual-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A lawsuit could accelerate research on tear gas and menstrual changes - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: Lanora Vasquez wasn\u2019t at any of the protests against police brutality that spread through the city of Portland in summer of 2020. 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