As stated above, exposure to ethylene oxide can be extremely dangerous. It is associated with numerous serious illnesses, including cancer. The same OSHA publication that is cited above states that potential adverse health events of ethylene oxide exposure include:
- Eye pain
- Sore throat
- Difficult breathing
- Blurred vision
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Headache
- Convulsions
- Blisters
- Vomiting
- Coughing
- Leukemia and other cancers
- Spontaneous abortion
- Genetic damage
- Nerve damage
- Peripheral paralysis
- Muscle weakness
- Impaired thinking
- Impaired memory
There are two metro Atlanta communities in particular that have suffered extraordinarily from ethylene oxide exposure: Smyrna and Covington.
According to the same EPA report cited above, and described in an article published by 11 Alive, the EPA considers it unacceptable for a community to have 100 extra incidences of cancer per 1 million people exposed (to ethylene oxide). In Smyrna, the cancer rate following ethylene oxide exposure was 114 additional cases of cancer; in Covington, there were more than 200 additional cases of cancer reported. This has resulted in the issue being referred to as the “Covington cancer cluster.” The Covington area exposure is the result of operations at the Becton Dickinson (BD) Bard plant.
Perhaps most shocking about the issue is not that ethylene oxide is dangerous or that cancer rates have skyrocketed in communities where ethylene oxide exposure has occurred, but that officials have known about the risks of ethylene oxide exposure for decades, yet people in communities living close to ethylene oxide-emitting facilities are being exposed to the toxin at concentrations up to 14 times higher than studies suggest are safe.