U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Archives

Ethylene oxide (Image from Sterigenics)

The first six of what attorneys said could be more than 100 lawsuits were filed recently in Georgia against Sterigenics and Becton Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) by people who have lived, worked or attended school near those companies’ medical device sterilization plants.

The plants use ethylene oxide (EtO) to sterilize millions of devices per year and reportedly have emitted thousands pounds of the gas into the atmosphere over the past. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named EtO a Level 1 carcinogen in 2016. Two years later, the EPA’s National Air Toxics Assessment identified 12 areas of the country with elevated levels of EtO emissions and associated cancer risk, including the areas of Georgia where BD and Sterigenics have EtO plants.

Get the full story on our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

(Image from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration)

Democrats in both houses of Congress have introduced legislation that would force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to better monitor emissions of ethylene oxide (EtO) from plants that manufacture the toxic gas or use it to sterilize medical devices.

The Public Health Air Quality Act of 2020, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), would require immediate EPA action to monitor emissions at “facilities contributing to high local cancer rates and other health threats from dangerous pollutants.” The list includes eight medtech sterilization plants included among 25 EPA-designated, EtO-using or -producing facilities:

Get the full story on our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

6 Georgia residents suing Sterigenics, BD over ethylene oxide exposure

Dems seek to force EPA action on ethylene oxide monitoring