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sterigenics

6 Georgia residents suing Sterigenics, BD over ethylene oxide exposure

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.

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600 new ethylene oxide lawsuits filed against Sterigenics in Illinois

Ethylene oxide (Image from Sterigenics)

More than 600 lawsuits were filed last week against Sterigenics, claiming that emissions from the company’s now-shuttered Willowbrook, Ill., ethylene oxide (EtO) plant caused health problems in people who lived or worked nearby.

The filings bring the total of personal-injury lawsuits against the Oak Park, Ill.-based company to more than 700, according to one of more than a dozen Chicago-area law firms that have filed lawsuits against Sterigenics; its parent company, Sotera Health; previous parent company Griffith Foods; current investor, private equity firm GTCR; and two managers.

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Sterigenics sues Ga. county officials over EtO-related property tax devaluations

Sterigenics has filed a lawsuit against the members of a Georgia county tax board, claiming that the board’s decision to lower valuations on properties near the company’s medical device sterilization plant has harmed its reputation.

The federal lawsuit, filed in Atlanta, also claims that the members of the Cobb County Board of Tax Assessors unfairly and arbitrarily pinned their April 15, 2020, tax valuation decision on Sterigenics’ use of ethylene oxide (EtO) to sterilize medical devices at the plant. The county lowered assessments by 10% on properties within 2 miles of the plant, citing “environmental air quality concern surrounding the Sterigenics plant,” the complaint says.

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Dems seek to force EPA action on ethylene oxide monitoring

(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:

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Ga. warehouse workers sue Sterigenics, ConMed over EtO exposure

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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