Nurses At Much Higher Risk For Toxin Exposure, Study Says

by Angie Smith

WASHINGTON – A first ever national survey of nurses’ exposures to chemicals, pharmaceuticals and radiation on the job suggests there are links between serious health problems such as cancer, asthma, miscarriages and children’s birth defects and the duration and intensity of these exposures. The survey included 1,500 nurses from all 50 states

The results were released online at ewg.org/reports/nursesurvey by the Environmental Working Group, the American Nurses Association, Health Care Without Harm, the Environmental Health Education Center at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. The survey was extremely detailed and is the first of its kind, but it was not a controlled, statistically designed study.

Every day, nurses confront low-level but repeated exposures to mixtures of hazardous materials that include residues from medications, anesthetic gases, sterilizing and disinfecting chemicals, radiation, latex, cleaning chemicals, hand and skin disinfection products, and even mercury escaping from broken medical equipment. There are no workplace safety standards to protect nurses from the combined effects of these exposures on their health.

“Nurses are exposed daily to scores of different toxic chemicals and other hazardous materials whose cumulative health risks have never been studied,” said Jane Houlihan, Vice President for Research at Environmental Working Group. “Nurses ingest, touch or breathe residues of any number of these potentially harmful substances as they care for patients, day after day and face potential but unstudied health problems as a result.”

“This survey is a call to action for nurses to demand the use of safer products and protective measures to control exposures to hazardous agents in the workplace,” said Anna Gilmore Hall, RN, executive director of Health Care Without Harm, an international coalition working to reduce the environmental impact of the health care sector.

The Centers for Disease Control proposed a National Occupational Exposure Survey for the health care industry in 2002. To date, no such survey has been initiated to better understand the range of potentially hazardous chemical exposure in the health care industry and related illnesses.

“For many of the toxic chemicals in hospitals there are safer alternative or safer processes. We must make these healthier choices for the sake of our patients, nurses and all hospital employees,” said Barbara Sattler, RN, DrPH, FAAN, Professor and Director of the Environmental Health Education Center at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

“ANA is dedicated to ensuring the health and safety of nurses and their patients,” said Rebecca M. Patton, MSN, RN, CNOR, President, American Nurses Association. “We are pleased to work with our partners to bring attention to the growing concern over chemical exposures in the workplace, and ANA will continue its efforts on behalf of the nursing profession to create healthier working environments.”

Angie Smith is a Freelance Journalist who lives in Kentucky and has a keen interest in keeping her family in good health. Angie can be contacted by e-mail at angiesmith74@gmail.com and she will be glad to personally answer any questions you may have about liquid zeolite. 

Nursing Among Most Toxic Professions

By Angie Smith

Health care workers wash and disinfect their hands sometimes 100-plus times per day with chemical-laced cleansers. They are exposed to housekeeping chemicals, latex, anesthetic gases, and radiation. The people who take care of us when we’re unable to…nurses…may have some of the highest toxin levels of any occupation, according to a just-released study.

The Environmental Work Group (EWG) released the results of a recent study which showed that nurses and other health-care workers who are exposed to housekeeping chemicals, drug residue, radiation, and other toxic substances, reported higher rates of miscarriages, cancers, and birth defects. 

And it doesn’t affect only our caregivers: it affects their offspring as well. The study also showed a 36% higher cancer rate among their children, even though the government does regulate the amount of radiation doses for pregnant nurses.

But just regulating it doesn’t appear to be enough: children born to nurses reporting high exposures to these chemicals (at least once a week for nine months) were up to two times more likely to be born with a congenital defect than children born to nurses with low or no exposures to these agents, and up to nine times more likely to suffer from musculoskeletal defects at birth.

Disconcerting? Here are some more poisonous points to ponder: nurses get a double-dose of toxins. “What do you mean by a ‘double-dose’?” you might ask. The same group, EWG, conducted studies on average Americans and found the presence of 469 chemicals in the blood, urine, and breast milk of 94 test subjects. These contaminants are found in the regular food, air, tap water and house dust we inhale and ingest every day. We also absorb chemicals through the skin. Nurses not only fall into this category, but they appear to be at at least a “double-risk” because of their work exposure to these toxins, plus those found in the health care environment.

Is anything being done?

Well, yes, and no. There is a growing awareness of the problem, and several groups, like EWG and the American Nurses Association have started a knowledge-based campaign. But currently, no safety testing for nurses is required. And while some health care products, like chemicals and drugs, have been tested for safety, that’s not so for industrial chemicals used by consumers and found in people everywhere.

In the meantime, it would seem prudent that health-care workers, especially the most hands-on employees (nurses, CNAs, and nurses’ assistants) go through a comprehensive detox program. This can be done relatively inexpensively and very effectively using a breakthrough mineral called zeolite.

In its liquid form, it is ingested tastelessly into the body and traps toxins, free radicals, chemical traces, and yes, even viruses. Nothing could benefit our health care workers more!

No one may know the full scope of this troubling outcome for years. Do you know a nurse or other hands-on healthcare worker? Show him or her this article. This time, it’s our turn to do the care-taking!

Angie Smith is a Freelance Journalist who lives in Kentucky and has a keen interest in keeping her family in good health. Angie can be contacted by e-mail at angiesmith74@gmail.com and she will be glad to personally answer any questions you may have about liquid zeolite.