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Tip of the Week
As an advisory to our customers, Coastwide Laboratories would like you to consider to the following article that appeared recently. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will notify you of significant developments.
Source: Oregonian Newspaper April 21,
1997
by Patrick O'Neill
Oregon Picks up Latex Glove Controversy
The Legislature will consider a bill to ban powder dusted medical gloves that
can cause deadly allergies.
Anna Salanti's worst fear is that she'll get sick and somebody will take her to a
hospital.
Salanti has a potentially life-threatening allergy to latex, a substance found throughout
the medical world.
On Dec. 16, while she was eating dinner in a Las Vegas restaurant, Salanti's eyes began to
itch and she began to wheeze as
her bronchial passages started to squeeze shut.
For the 45 year-old Portland resident the feeling was all to familiar. Two years earlier
while receiving intravenous antibiotics
through a latex tube for an infection she developed the same symptoms.
Salanti is a vocal supporter of a bill in the Oregon Legislature that would ban latex
gloves that are dusted with powder to make them easier to put on and take off. If the bill
passes, Oregon would become the first state to ban powdered gloves in health care
settings.
Salanti said she developed her allergy 20 years ago while working as a registered nurse in
the burn unit of a San Francisco
hospital. She would spend her days changing dressings with her hands encased in powdered
latex gloves.
At first her hands became red and sore. Within six months she no longer could tolerate the
gloves. Eventually she became a
nursing case manager - a position in which gloves weren't needed.
But as the years passed, her allergy became so acute that the slightest exposure to latex
would set off increasingly severe
symptoms. She finally left nursing altogether.
The Las Vegas episode was triggered by a food handler who prepared her meal wearing latex
gloves.
Salanti is among the growing number of Americans who are allergic to latex. The American
College of Allergy, Asthma and
Immunology estimates that 18 million Americans or about 64 in every 1,000 are sensitive to
the substance. That's up from one
in 1000 in the early 1980's.
The AIDS epidemic has made latex glove manufacturing a growth industry. Not only health
care workers wear the gloves but
also food service workers, janitors, police and firefighters.
Last year the organization launched a national campaign to raise the level of concern
about latex.
Dr. Emil Bardana, head of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Oregon Health Sciences
University said more and more
people are developing latex allergies because of the broad use of powdered latex gloves.
There is widespread concern that the powdered cornstarch used in the gloves binds the
latex protein molecules. Bardana said the protein molecules cause allergicreactions when
the body's immune system mistakes them for harmful invaders. When the gloves are removed,
the powder become airborne taking the allergy causing molecules with it.
The floating protein bearing dust can cause sensitivity to latex when people inhale it he
said.
Bardana said that although he's concerned about latex allergies he thinks that banning
powdered gloves isn't necessary.
"It seems to me that you may want to educate people to use these products in other
ways" he said.
The bill proposed by the Oregon Nurses Association would ban the use of powdered latex
gloves in health care settings.
Debate about the bill is laced with both health and economic interests. Oregon has become
a battleground for glove
manufacturers who are jockeying for competitive advantage.
A Johnson and Johnson official said his company would fight the legislation. "We are
not aware of any scientific evidence that
supports this bill," said Robert V. Andrews, a company spokesman. "Our people
are not aware of any evidence that shows
there is any greater allergic reaction to powdered gloves."
Johnson and Johnson casts the issue as a matter of personal choice for nurses and
physicians. "We believe health care workers should be able to choose for themselves
which gloves they use" Andrews said.
Ansell Perry Inc. of Massillon, Ohio is the world's largest maker of latex gloves, both
powdered and powder-free. Romeo
Catracchia, Ansell executive vice president, said his company has encouraged it's
customers to buy powder free gloves.
The Oregon legislation, he said, "is aligned to what we would like to see happen in
the marketplace." Catracchia said powder
free examination gloves are about twice as expensive as the powdered version, and powder
free surgical gloves are foour to
five times more expensive.
The reduction in medical costs to treat allergic reactions more than makes up for added
expense, he said.
John W. Morgan, president of America's Regent Medical Co. Of Norcross GA., is in Oregon to
help push the bill. His
company makes powderless gloves. "We certainly support the legislation, he said.
"We have an interest in it commercially and
ethically."
Patricia Kabele, a lobbyist for the Oregon Nurses Association, said the issue is one of
safety for consumers and health care
workers. "Once you become sensitized you can go into respiratory arrest just by
walking into a hospital," she said, "it's
egregious. We cannot stand by and let this happen. If you do believe in doing no harm,
this is an issue for you."
Susan McGann president of the Delaware Valley Latex Allergy Support Network in
Philadelphia, said Oregon will take center stage in the latex allergy debates. "If
this legislation passes, Oregon is going to be the grounds for multiple issues to come on
latex allergy; the biggest of which is who regulates hospital products" she said.
Salanti's Las Vegas episode had a happy ending. She called an ambulance and told the
emergency workers to take her to a
nearby clinic instead of a hospital emergency room where she thought there would be more
latex. At the clinic she said she was given an injection to counter the effects of the
latex.
