Leona Chalmer's 1937
book with a drawing of a cup.
And read comments from people who have used a cup.
Do cups cause endometriosis? Not enough
evidence, says the FDA.
 
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A History of the Menstrual Cup (continued)
Women Tossed Away the Tassaway
Below: a newspaper Tassaway ad from its first year, in the Reno [Nevada]
Evening Gazette, November 4, 1970. More ads: 1971
and 1972, 1972 &
1973 Dutch ads, and instructions
for use of the cup.
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Below: The Tassaway mark in the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office, filed Aug. 9. 1966 but described as having been in
use since 1963.
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 It's a short story.
In 1970, Tassette, Inc., the maker of the now-defunct Tassette menstrual
cup, launched its first promotion since the early 1960s, this time for its
new disposable cup, Tassaway (bottom of page),
which was made of a non-absorbent elastomeric polymer (patent drawing at
left). Robert Oreck, the president of the company, hoped the new cup would
generate more money than the old one by solving the two problems Oreck thought
were at the heart of the failure of Tassette: women
did not want to wash and re-use the cup, and satisfied customers would not
quickly buy another one because they could use them for several years.
Eduardo F. Peña, M.D., Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists, tested the Tassette at the company's request in 1961
(the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology published his report "Advantages
of the Menstrual Cup" - Tassette, Inc. funded the study - in the May
1962 issue), and talked with a Barron's reporter in 1970 before a talk he
gave about Tassette (not the new Tassaway) at the Sixth World Congress of
Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Peña's judgment was positive, including "[u]se of the cup
is hygienic in that it avoids the infections commonly associated with sanitary
napkins and tampons." What he meant were mostly infections caused by
the Trichomonas vaginalis protozoan (he said that Trichomonas caused 80%
of vaginal infections he saw in his practice in Miami) and the Candida albicans
fungus, which causes moniliasis, which thrives in Florida's subtropical
climate. Cystitis is also a problem with women using pads, because feces
on the napkin can bring Esherichia coli bacteria to the urethra. (Read the
Dickinson Report from 1945 about these very problems.)
The doctor recommended that users dip the cup into a weak solution of chlorine
bleach after the period to kill any adhering bacteria.
(In an article from the "toxic shock era," which started with
menstrual products in the late 1970s, in Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics
and Gynecology (2:140-145, 1994), Philip M. Tierno, Jr., and Bruce A. Hanna
of the Departments of Microbiology and Pathology of the New York University
School of Medicine, wrote that "S[taphylococcus] aureus MN8 produced
no TSST-1 when grown in the presence of Tassaway," thus absolving Tassaway
of any charge of promoting toxic shock.)
Barron's reporter Alan Abelson, who wrote the column "Up and Down
Wall Street," criticized the doctor's statement that the cup was "an
economically viable product." He said it was a judgment for the consumer
to make.
He was only partly right. Suspicions of fraud
involving shares in the company surfaced. (See a share
from 1971.) Tassette, Inc., reported selling thousands of Tassaways, but
not nearly enough to justify the high value of each share.
On July 17, 1972, a federal judge in Los Angeles issued an order permanently
enjoining Robert Oreck and Tassette, Inc., from violating the registration
provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the anti-fraud provisions of
the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Interestingly enough, apparently women could still buy the cup in The
Netherlands in 1972 and 1973, as these ads here
and here show. (More ads: 1971
and 1972, and instructions
for use of the cup.)
Tassette, Inc., was essentially dead, but it had hardly lived. Just
as with Tassette, the company never made a profit. The company owed J. Walter
Thompson, the advertising agency, a little over $1 million, while having
assets of only $228,829; a Tassette lawyer lowered that value to $30,000,
partly because the unusual nature of the equipment reduced its attractiveness.
Not until the late 1980s did The Cup reappear. This time it has succeeded
modestly. I'm talking about The Keeper (Part 4).
(Most of the information above about Tassette,
Tassaway and Chalmer's patent came from Advertising Age, Barron's, Drug
Trade News, Editor and Publisher, Investment Dealer's Digest from the 1960s
and 1970s; and from a Stock Prospectus dated 28 August 1961. Mr. Oreck refused
my request for an interview, referring me to another company official; I
could not find her.)
© 1997-2006 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
any of the work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written
permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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