O.B. Tampon Shortage Sends Women Searching Online

Women are searching high and low for o.b. Tampons, which suffered a "temporary supply interruption" this fall.

The shortage was noticeable at some Center City drug stores.

At the Walgreens at 11th and Locust they haven't gotten a shipment in about a month and people keep asking when more will be coming in. The store manger doesn't know that answer.

Across town at the Rite Aid at 23rd and Walnut the shipments keep getting smaller and smaller, according to the manager.

The problem goes up the east coast.

The tampons were noticeably missing from the shelves of the Value Drug Pharmacy located in the Concourse of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The store manager told us they had not been able to obtain the feminine products for months. And apparently it is one affecting stores everywhere.

"I looked for some o.b. Tampons the other day and couldn't find them, but didn't thing much of it," remarked Alexis Stewart, after we informed her Johnson and Johnson, the manufacturer, had admitted to what it called a "disruption in supply."

Many women swear by the product because they don't have an applicator, making them much more environmentally friendly than their plastic or paper applicator counterparts.

The New Jersey-based company has stated it will resume shipments without elaborating on why the shortage occurred in the first place. "To be honest with you I don't know what I would have done. I don't like any of the others, "said Emma Simonich, who noticed the empty shelf.

Other o.b. loyalists have taken to the Internet where some are actually bidding for boxes. It's a seller market with the product that generally retails for less than $5 a box commanding multiples upon multiples of that sum.

One seller put a 40x2 box up on eBay for almost 85 bucks -- as of Wednesday night there were no bidders. At least the seller was offering free shipping.


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