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 was completed in 2007 . The survey included 1,500 nurses from all 50 states.
The results may be found 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.
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. In many states 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.”
At Schmidt-Salita Law Team we discuss your employment history and have represented numerous nurses and health care providers. We pursue claims and lawsuits against those employers, manufacturers and third parties for medical care, lost earnings, the victim’s pain and suffering, or the survivors’ losses. Please contact us at
Phone: 952-473-4530
Toll Free: 1-800-656-8450
Fax: 952-544-1308
Email: info@mnlawteam.com