VERNON, Conn.--(BW HealthWire)Thursday May 20, 11:11 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Federal Safety Needle Legislation
VERNON, Conn.--(BW HealthWire)--May 20, 1999--The momentum toward mandating safe needles to protect health care workers continues to grow. Today in Washington, D.C., Representative Pete Stark (D-California) and Representative Marge Roukema (R-NJ) introduced a bill in Congress mandating the use safe needles for healthcare workers.
The proposed legislation mirrors the 1998 California law requiring that hospitals use needles designed with 'engineered controls' to protect the workers from accidental needlesticks. ''Mandating the use of safe needles on a national level will have a tremendous impact in preventing accidental needlesticks,'' said Tom Sutton, Executive Vice President at Bio-Plexus, Inc. According to Congressman Stark's office, needlestick injuries caused by hollow-bore needles account for 86% of all reported occupational HIV exposures, and every year more than 200 health care workers die of occupationally acquired hepatitis.
''If safety needles are nationally mandated, as it appears they may be, conventional, 'unsafe' needles will become obsolete,'' Sutton concluded. In addition to being endorsed by Bio-Plexus, the act is also supported by organizations including: the American Nurses Association, Kaiser Permanente, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and Becton Dickinson, a major medical device manufacturer.
On the state level, legislation mandating the use of safety needles has passed in California and Tennessee. In April, Maryland passed a bill requiring the state to develop recommendations to protect health care workers. Legislation is pending in Texas, New Jersey, Arkansas, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York.
Bio-Plexus, Inc. (NASDAQ:BPLX - news), designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and holds U.S. and international patents on safety medical needles and other products under the PUNCTUR-GUARD® and DROP-IT® brand names. In a Centers for Disease Control study, Punctur-Guard Blood Collection Needles were found to reduce the rate of accidental needlesticks among healthcare workers by 76%, the highest rate of any device studied. Accidental needlesticks number about one million per year in the United States and can result in the transmission of deadly diseases including HIV and Hepatitis.
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