The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday released a draft toxicity profile of ethylene oxide (EtO) that treats it as a more far-reaching health threat than the Environmental Protection Agency does.
The EPA and the federal Department of Health and Human Services both consider EtO a human carcinogen. The medical device industry relies on EtO to sterilize about 50% of all devices sold in the U.S. that require sterilization — more than 20 billion medical devices per year, according to the FDA.
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