Food and Drug Reactions and AnaphylaxisPrimary prevention of natural rubber latex allergy in the German health care system through education and intervention☆
Section snippets
Educational and regulatory measures
In December 1995, an interdisciplinary work group from the departments of dermatology, allergy, and occupational medicine of 7 German universities met in the Berufsgenossenschaftliches Forschungsinstitut für Arbeitsmedizin (BGFA), Bochum, Germany, to decide on recommendations concerning the prevention of NRL allergy in HCWs and allergic patients. Those guidelines for hospital administrators and personnel were published in several scientific journals15 and were also distributed by the BGFA. Two
Results
The greatest increase in the use of powdered NRL gloves was registered in 1990, when the purchase of nonsterile examination gloves more than doubled, from 166 million pieces in 1989 to 364 million pieces. The second largest increase took place in 1995, when a peak of 738 million powdered gloves was bought, resulting in an increase of 151 million from the previous year. Afterward, the number of purchased powder-free NRL examination gloves increased dramatically, and by 1998, sales of these
Discussion
The number of powdered NRL gloves purchased in acute-care hospitals in Germany for use in operating theaters and for examination purposes has dramatically fallen since 1996, after a massive increase beginning in 1986. Historically, there were 2 main reasons for the increased use of powdered NRL examination gloves in Germany: (1) the increasing environmental pressure to reduce the use of polyvinyl chloride gloves because of their difficulty to decompose in landfills (lack of biodegradability)
Acknowledgements
We thank Ms Alexandra Ziegenhain, GPI Krankenhausforschung (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), for her invaluable help in supplying the glove data from the archives of the Gesellschaft für Pharma-Informationssysteme mbH. We are grateful for the detailed analysis of suspected NRL cases by Hans Peter Scheer, BGW Hamburg. The evaluations of subjects were carried out at the Berufs-genossenschaftliches Forschungsinstitut für Arbeitsmedizin in Bochum, Germany. We thank Mr Brian Thomas for his meticulous
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2021, World Allergy Organization JournalCitation Excerpt :Some of the most compelling work comes from colleagues in Germany in workplace settings. An obvious reduction in sensitization occurred after measures of latex avoidance were taken consisting of stopping the use of powdered latex gloves.53 Most interesting were the longitudinal data collected from latex-allergic healthcare workers who had a positive skin and serology test.
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Reprint requests: Henning Allmers, MD, Universität Osnabrueck, Department of Dermatology, Environmental Medicine and Health Sciences, Sedanstrasse 115, 49090 Osnabrück, Germany.