Bruce Dan, 64, who as a leading federal researcher helped establish a link between the life-threatening disease toxic shock syndrome and the use of tampons, prompting a major shift in the way tampons are produced, died Tuesday in Baltimore.
The cause was complications of a bone marrow transplant he received last year after learning he had leukemia, said his wife, Lisa Stark, a correspondent for ABC News.
Dan, who later became a television medical commentator, was a member of the Toxic Shock Syndrome Task Force, which was created by the Centers for Disease Control in 1980 after a virulent outbreak of the disease.
The task force found that a large proportion of cases involved previously healthy women who had been stricken during a menstrual period and that tampons were a highly significant risk factor. One study, in which Dan played a central role, showed that one brand of tampon, Rely, made by Procter & Gamble, carried an elevated risk because its lubricant, Pluronic L92, greatly increased the level of toxins in the bacterium that causes toxic shock. The New York Times
