Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD. Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News.
“During this entire process, I’ve had so many different scientists and subject matter experts talk to me about what’s high and what’s not high, and that’s one of the frustrating things about this whole thing, is that I’m just trying to find the facts,” he said. The levels of ethylene oxide measured in Covington Mill, a neighborhood that sits southwest of BD, over the 7 days of testing ranged from .6 to 15.3 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The highest level, 15.3 micrograms per cubic meter of air, taken on Sept. 22, is 765 times higher than the EPA’s safe level.
In its statement, the company said that ethylene oxide can come from many sources, including humans, and disputed the health risk. Johnston says BD had been a good partner to the community and an important employer there. He says he hoped they would voluntarily shut down until new pollution controls could be installed.
The two metro Atlanta sterilizing plants have been under community and political pressure since a July report from WebMD and Georgia Health News identified three metro Atlanta census tracts in federal Environmental Protection Agency data as having a higher cancer risk from air pollution, largely driven by ethylene oxide.The EPA classified the chemical as a cancer-causing substance in 2016.
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