There has been some hoopla (concern) raised over the use of a sterilizing gas known as Ethyl Oxide (EtO). It's apparently used all over the place, especially when you can't use steam sterilization.
The use of ETO evolved when few alternatives existed for sterilizing heat- and moisture-sensitive medical devices
the main advantage is that it can sterilize heat- or moisture-sensitive medical equipment without deleterious effects on the material used in the medical devices
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This would be for stuff that can't handle heat or moisture. Ya know, if you would want to sterilize paper towels, toilet paper, just as an example. Not that they do sterilize that. Unless they do?
This comes in handy with medical stuff. But it has safety issues, like:
potential hazards to patients and staf
Acute exposure to ETO may result in irritation (e.g., to skin, eyes, gastrointestinal or respiratory tracts) and central nervous system depression.859-862 Chronic inhalation has been linked to the formation of cataracts, cognitive impairment, neurologic dysfunction, and disabling polyneuropathies.860, 861, 863-866Occupational exposure in healthcare facilities has been linked to hematologic changes 867 and an increased risk of spontaneous abortions and various cancers318, 868-870. ETO should be considered a known human carcinogen.871
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The Colorado Herald has a piece on the health issues, especially poignant in these times of heavy covid testing. Why? the swabs are treated with this carcinogen.
At the beginning of the “pandemic,” sterilization techniques for PPE, such as gowns and masks used in the medical field, were called into question for use of ethylene oxide (EtO). Because PPE was in short supply, the FDA and EPA encouraged medical supply and sterilization companies to use EtO to help meet the demands for PPE.
The FDA and EPA may or may not have realized at the time that COVID-19 tests would be sterilized with ethylene oxide.
There are lots of 'side-effects' that can happen with with exposure:
Nausea
Vomiting
Bronchitis
Neurological disorders
Pulmonary edema
Emphysema
Irritation of dermal areas in contact
Irritation of eyes, skin, and respiratory passages
Renal failure
Miscarriage
Decreased fertility in both sexes
Lymphoid and breast cancer
Brain, organ, skin, lung cancer
Lymphoma and leukemia
Sounds great. But it's safe, they say, because they aerate and get rid of enough of the gas that was absorbed, saying the levels are well below the limits of safety, set by those ultra-reliable national and international standards. Ya know, those places like the FDA and EPA that have revolving doors with chemical and big pharma industries. Ya...
The vast majority of ethylene oxide produced worldwide is used to manufacture other chemicals, in particular ethylene glycol, a key ingredient in antifreeze, polyester fabrics and plastics. Major producers include Dow Chemical, Shell, Huntsman and Union Carbide (now a subsidiary of Dow).
People are being poisoned in it's manufacture, but that's ok, keep on pumping that shit out. Watchdogs have been onto EtO and the industry BS and the protection agencies:
Richard Peltier, an environmental health researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, reviewed the study for Lipinski’s office. The methodology used by the industry-funded researchers appears to have been designed to produce the results they wanted, Peltier said, noting they ignored research on low-level exposures to animals and based their analysis largely on industrial workers who generally are healthier than the general population.
“They just made stuff up,” Peltier said in an interview. “It’s another attempt to throw mud on the wall to see if it will stick.”
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Meanwhile the blue-check fact-checkers and their BS try to tell you that everything is fine, the test kits aren't possibly causing cancer even though they admit they are treated with a carcinogen, because it's "widely-used process that is regulated by international safety standards". I feel safe now.