The FDA will continue its efforts to find alternative medical device sterilization methods to ethylene oxide (EO), even though a major EO plant is slated to reopen.

Yesterday, medtech sterilization company Sterigenics and the state of Illinois announced they had reached a proposed consent agreement to reopen a plant in Willowbrook, Ill., which the state shut down in February, citing excessive emissions of EO, a carcinogenic gas. The plant had sterilized millions of devices annually — 594 types of devices, according to the FDA, including sutures, clamps, knives, stents and needles.

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