The fight over plants that use ethylene oxide (EO) to sterilize medical devices is escalating across the country.

New proposed legislation in Illinois would ban the use of the carcinogenic gas by sterilizers by 2021 and by hospitals by 2022, according to reports by the Chicago Tribune. A legislative hearing on the bill is scheduled for this afternoon. A different state law passed in Illinois in June would have required Medline Industries to install a taller emissions stack on its sterilization plant in Waukegan, Ill., but the Waukegan City Council voted down the taller stack in September, the newspaper reported.

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