Fifty-three people who worked in an Atlanta-area warehouse that stored medical devices sterilized by ethylene oxide (EtO) filed suit this week against Sterigenics and its parent company over exposure to the gas.
The plaintiffs or their families claim that long-term EtO exposure to the sterilized devices, which they unloaded, handled, warehoused and distributed, caused multiple deaths, cancer, tumors, respiratory, pulmonary, epidermal, hematological, cardiological, neurological and other serious medical conditions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers EtO a human carcinogen, and news of its use has sparked an outcry among residents and workers in neighborhoods surrounding EtO plants in Illinois, Michigan and Georgia.
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